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QUIET TALKS ON 
HOME IDEALS 



S. D. GORDON'S BOOKS 



^uiet Talks on Home Ideals 

16mo, cloth, net 75c 

A new volume of Mr. Gordon's force- 
ful talks which in the words of a 
prominent Bible scholar and leader 
^' have thrilled, captivated and inspired 
to pray without ceasing." 



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Keeping Tryst 

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QUIET TALKS 

ON HOME IDEALS 

BY 
S. D. GORDON 

AND 

MARY KILGORE GORDON 




New York Chicago Toronto 

Fleming H. Revell Company 

London and Edinburgh 



Copyright, 1909, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY ^^^ 



\-\ 



V:K 



QUIET TALKS 


FIRST SERIES 


Quiet Talks on Power 


Quiet Talks on Prayer 


Quiet Talks on Service 


SECOND SERIES 


Quiet Talks about Jesus 


Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 


Quiet Talks with World Winners 


THIRD SERIES 


Quiet Talks on Home Ideals 



New York : 1 58 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago : 80 Wabash Avenue 
Toronto : 35 Richmond St., W. 
London : 2 1 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh : 100 Princes Street 



©CI.A251532 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction 7 

Ideals: God's Tuning-forks to Keep the 
Music of Life up to Concert Pitch . . 11 

The Finest Friendship: The Rhythmic 

Living of Two Together 41 

Home: Where Love Reigns, and Trains . 81 

The Finest Friendship's Finest Fruit: 

In the Innermost Holy of Holies . . 117 

Father-Mother: God's Fellow-creators . 145 

The Babe: A Fresh Act of God . . , 189 

Heredity: The Influences That Go Before 221 

Training: The Influences That Come 

After ....,» . . . . 245 

Appendix 283 



INTRODUCTION 

These are the quietest talks of all. They are 
about the hallowed things of the sacred inner 
circle, of which they who know them speak in 
soft tones and reverential spirit, and then only 
to those whose hearts are sympathetic, and only 
at such times as the heart-mood is dominant. 

The purpose of sending out this little home 
messenger was formed some seven years ago, 
and the work of preparation has been going on 
since then, though the brooding over the ideals 
themselves runs through a much longer time. 

That purpose came as a direct result of letters 
received, and interviews sought, regarding the 
true ideals of home-life, and asking about helpful 
literature on the subject. These letters and 
interviews, coming through many years, have 
been from all parts of the United States, from 
Canada, from the British Isles and Colonies, and 
from foreign-mission lands; from all classes of 
people ; and from those of well matured years as 
well as from young people, with the latter 
predominating. These have been so pleadingly 

7 



8 Introduction. 

earnest in their inquiry, and have revealed such 
real perplexity touching these vital matters, that 
coming from such wide and varied circles, they 
seem clearly to indicate a need both deeply felt 
and wide-spread. 

A fuller treatment of the subject of the fourth 
chapter, '' The Finest Friendship's Finest Fruits," 
is published separately, under the title, " The 
Quietest Talk/' 

It will be found that the talks run through a 
cycle of life, from the time of the making of the 
life-friendship and the home, until the same 
sacred time in the life of those who come, and 
grow up in that home. 

This simple little book is like the things of 
which it talks in one important particular. It 
takes two in one to make friendship and home, 
and to grow friendship's finest fruit. And it 
likewise takes two in one to talk of such things. 
And even as it is impossible to draw a dividing 
line between the two in friendship or in home, 
so it is found quite impossible, as the little book 
goes out, to draw a line between the work of 
each one engaged in its writing, so interwoven 
are both the thought and the language. 



IDEALS: GOD'S TUNING-FORKS TO 

KEEP THE MUSIC OF LIFE UP 

TO CONCERT PITCH. 



Idealizing Light. 

Through God's Eyes, 

An Opened Eye. 

God's Tuning-forks, 

''It's Raining Roses Down!' 

The Secret of Beauty, 

The Practical Idealist, 

Flying the Flag at the Tip-top. 

The Secret of Making Ideals Real. 



" Couldst thou in vision see 

Thyself the man God meant; 
Thou never more wouldst be 
The man thou art — content." 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, 



IDEALS. 



Idealizing Light. 

One New Year's morning we walked out to a 
little rise of ground among the hills of southern 
Kentucky, and watched the sun come up over the 
eastern slope. First there came a glow of ex- 
quisitely soft, pale-green light, such as no 
artist's canvas ever showed. Gradually it 
changed into a golden green, and spread out two 
long slender arms to north and south, as though 
to gather the world to its warm heart, and always 
hold it there. 

It changed again, and kept changing, but so 
softly and quietly that we scarcely noticed how 
the change came, and yet we plainly saw it come. 
The change was chiefly in the rare coloring, from 
soft green, to a tingeing together of green and 
yellow-green, and then to gold, each blending 
into each other, as only hearts that know love 
can blend. And the reaching arms of light 
lengthened, and kept lengthening, as though 
tenderly eager to take in the whole earth, and 
fill it with brightness and warmth. 



12 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

As the light increased, the central spot on the 
horizon whence it all came, grew into such a 
blaze of fiery light that our eyes were bothered 
quite a bit. The glory was too great for them 
to gaze fully upon it, and involuntarily we half 
closed them and turned our faces to one side. 
And the Damascus traveler's phrase, in the story 
of another light, came vividly to mind : '* When I 
could not see for the glory of that light/' Am- 
bitions that had gripped lost their tenacious 
clutch upon his heart as the glory of that 
light flooded his face. Pet plans blurred and 
faded, and then slipped out of sight; evil pas- 
sions lost the heat of their flame; and tempta- 
tions lost their power to attract and sway, as 
the beauty and splendor of this new glory 
threw its wondrous light into his eyes and 
heart. 

And a bit of prayer came quickly up from 
heart to lip that this other light, that in its trans- 
forming beauty was so much above the shining 
of the sunlight, might affect our eyes too, all 
the new year, and all the years after this one 
had begun to grow gray. 

That burst of dazzling sunlight came to us 
just over a little hilltop, through two big beeches, 
and a group of small cedars. We knew that 
hilltop, for we had been up there more than 
once. We knew there was a little family bury- 
ing-place up there, where precious bodies had 



Ideals. 13 

been tenderly laid away long years before. And 
carved stones of gray told bits of the life-story 
of those gone. But the place had fallen into 
disuse and decay. The stones were leaning 
over, some this way, and some that, like totter- 
ing old men, and some were fallen flat. Small 
scrubby bushes and underbrush covered the 
ground. The old fence was badly broken down. 
Everything seemed to spell out neglect, as though 
the hands that had once lovingly laid these 
away, had themselves lost their cunning and life, 
and in turn had been laid away. The old bury- 
ing-place was forgot. We knew well that was 
what the little hilltop looked like in plain prosaic 
daylight, close to. 

But, do you know, all that was changed to 
our eyes as we looked out over the hill, and 
through its ragged crown of trees at the blaze 
of glory beyond. The rising sun idealized the 
neglected hilltop. It was beautiful, with a real 
rare beauty, as it stood bathed in the early light 
of the new year's first morning. All the sharp 
jaggedness was softened. The halo of the sun 
was over broken fence and neglected graves. 
And as we looked we didn't think of the decay, 
but of the beauty. The decay had passed out 
of our thought. The beauty swayed us. It 
seemed prophetic of a new life that would come 
some day to the hill, and that had already come 
to the former tenants of those laid-away bodies. 



14 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

and would some glad day come to the bodies 
themselves, too. 



Through God's Eyes. 

As we turned about to retrace our steps, more 
o£ the idealizing beauty of the light came to 
view. Just below us a bit lay a little group of 
negro cabins. We knew them^ too, and what 
they looked like in full daylight, close up. For 
an errand had carried us there only the day be- 
fore. The unkempt yards, the broken-down 
fences patched up with things not originally in 
the architect's plan for a fence, the familiar 
rootings of black swine in unabashed closeness 
of touch to cabin and children, untidy garments, 
untrained speech, and narrow prejudices — all 
combined to make a rather unattractive picture, 
relieved only by the ever present charm of human 
life, from which the touch of God's gracious 
hand is never absent. 

That was what we knew was down there. 
But it wasn't what we saw now under the trans- 
forming touch of the early morning light. The 
scene took on something of the beauty of the 
light of God that shone upon it. The light that 
softened the rough exterior of the cabins made 
us think of the caressing hand of God upon the 
lives within. We remembered that God was 
not thinking of crude speech, nor ragged out- 



Ideals. 15 

side, nor narrow prejudices, but of the human 
lives that under His touch could be so trans- 
formed. 

A bit later the sky changed. There were 
clouds, and they played well their part. For 
clouds are God's reflectors ; they catch the light, 
and spread out its great beauty before our sight. 
They are meant to brighten and soften, not to 
darken. This is true of all clouds, those up in 
the sky, and those in the sky of your life; 
though so many have never learned how to look 
at clouds, and so miss so much. Our new year's 
clouds caught the yellow glory-light, and played 
the chemist for us, changing it to a wondrous 
rose-color. 

It seemed as if all the native sweet-brier of 
England, and all the wild roses of our own land 
had been absorbed into one great flood of rose- 
color. And as we watched we thought — yes, 
we were sure, it was no fancy — there was a 
fragrance in the air, so fresh and soft and sweet, 
blowing in our faces; and we knew they were 
really roses, the roses of life, the flowers of God, 
up yonder, though unlisted in the cruder botany 
of our schoolbooks. 

Then we came back to the tow^n, to the com- 
monplace round that fills up a part of every day 
for everybody who is doing his share of the 
world's work. But somehow the glory of the 
rising sun cast a mellowing light over the com- 



i6 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

monplace things. And better yet, the glory of 
that other Light, behind and brighter than the 
sun, which lighteth every man, crept gently into 
our inner spirits, sweetening and refreshing, 
strengthening and breathing in a great peace. 
And the commonness of the round, still there, 
and still common, fell into its secondary place, 
for the glory of the Lord was shining 'round 
about us. The rough outer shell of things was 
transfigured by the glory of the ideal in our 
hearts. There was standing One in our midst 
whom we knew, and recognised. And He ideal- 
ized life for us, while our hands were tugging 
away at the tough tasks. 

An Opened Eye. 



God's world is full of things that idealize. 
The less distinct lights, dawnlight and twilight, 
starlight and the bewitching moonlight, cast a 
rare spell over nature. The snow gently covers 
up earth's rough, unkempt places with its soft 
clinging white. The green mantle does the same 
kindly service during the other half of the year. 
Distance has a peculiar power to close our eyes 
partly so that only the pleasing outlines are seen. 
The artist has caught the same fine touch from 
the hand of God. How a picture idealizes, 
whether in paint or water-color, or made by the 
touch of the sun upon the photographer's chem- 



Ideals. 17 

icals ! The halo of the ideal glamours over every 
poverty-stricken corner, and every crude and 
coarse surface. 

So, too, God has taught the human heart to 
idealize. For nothing can exceed or equal the 
power of love to see the ideal, and be gripped 
and swayed by it. The neighbor sees a freckled- 
faced, short-nosed boy, but the mother sees only 
a face of beauty, and out of its eye looks a man, 
who is going to help shape, and maybe shake the 
world. The inspector at Ellis Island sees only 
a couple of bundles being tugged and lugged 
along by some skirts and a bright-colored shawl, 
but the young husband impatiently waiting at the 
gate, whose hard-earned savings have brought 
her over, sees the winsome maiden whose face 
still holds him in thrall. 

So the inspiring vision of God comes over all 
life. The idealizing of the outer world is one 
of God's ways of teaching us to see the beauty 
and fineness that lie hidden in the uncouth and 
rough and commonplace; the victory that waits 
our grasp within every difficulty. It spells out 
for us the great simple secret Paul had learned : 
while we look not at the things that are seen, 
but at the things that are not seen; for the 
things that are seen are often coarse and com- 
monplace and are only for a passing hour; but 
the things that are not seen are full of beauty 
and power, and last forever. 



1 8 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

The God-touched eye sees through fog and 
smoke to the unseen harbor beyond. It insists 
on steering steady and straight regardless of the 
storm overhead, and the rock or snag under- 
neath. There is a victory in hiding in every 
knotty difficulty. Every trying circumstance 
contains a song of gladness waiting to be freed 
by our touch. Each disheartening condition can 
be made to grow roses. 

Every man you meet has the image of God 
upon his face, though so often blurred and 
marred. Jesus saw a pure redeemed life in the 
Sychar outcast, and then released it out into 
blessed messenger service for Himself in her 
native town. The Jesus-taught man learns to 
look quickly through soil and sin to the human 
life within, waiting the transforming touch of 
sympathy and help. In one of his books, 
''Salted with Fire," George MacDonald tells 
of a young woman who had been led astray. A 
warm-hearted minister found her one night on 
his doorstep, and guessing her story, brought 
her into his home. His little daughter upstairs 
with her mother asked, '' Mamma, who is it Papa 
has in the library ? " And the wise mother 
quietly replied, " It is an angel, dear, who has 
lost her way, and Papa is telling her the way 
back." There are a great many all around us 
needing the same seeing eye and warm hand, 
though not fallen as low as she. 



Ideals. 19 

Life has a great holy purpose to be gripped 
and won, or done; it is not for mere money- 
getting, or pleasure-seeking and -sipping. All 
life is splendidly worth while because of what 
can be done. Every new day is marked red for 
us in the calendar of God, for what He means it 
to bring to us, and to carry from us to others. 
Each dawning morning is big and bright with 
new victory eagerly waiting our winning hand. 

Ideals grip us, and key us up to doing our 
best, and giving our best. This is God's plan. 
They are as the unseen face of God wooing us 
up the heights. They grow roses in our skies 
and roses in our eyes, and the fragrance sweet- 
ens the air, and freshens our hearts, even while 
our feet are plodding the old beaten path. 

God's Tuning-forks, 



Ideals are God's tuning-'forks to keep the 
sweet music of life up to concert pitch. Tuning- 
forks are valuable in music because they are so 
largely free from the secondary, or partial tones. 
And they are independent, too, of the ordinary 
changes of temperature. The tuning-fork needs 
to be given a sharp blow to bring out the tone. 
The standard of musical tone commonly known 
as " concert pitch " is also commonly known 
among musicians as '' high pitch," giving the 
greatest number of vibrations in a second of time 



20 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

of any of the accepted standards. It is rather 
suggestive, in this connection, to recall that the 
standard of the French Academy, known as 
" French pitch," is also commonly known as 
"' low pitch " ; and that " classical pitch " and 
" philosophical pitch," notwithstanding their at- 
tractive names, are lower than the " concert 
pitch " standard. 

We all need spirit tuning-forks, that can be 
depended upon to give out the true, full, primary 
tone, when brought into sharp contact with the 
difficulties of common life; and that will do it 
regardless of the weather that may chance to 
prevail, storm and clear alike, gray and blue. 
And we need forks that are keyed up to God's 
concert pitch. 

It was of unfailing interest in early years, in 
the old Covenanter Church in Philadelphia, to 
watch the precentor '' raise the tune." He al- 
ways took out his tuning-fork, gave it a quick 
blow, held it quietly to his ear for a few mo- 
ments while the children watched breathlessly, 
and then started the singing. The congrega- 
tion always waited until he got the pitch and 
began the tune. Although he had been leading 
the singing every Sabbath for many years, he 
never depended on his skill or experience, but 
got a fresh start by the fork every time. 

The great Master-musician has given every 
man a tuning-fork, keyed to concert pitch; 



Ideals. 21 

though so many are not used. The few great 
simple ideals of true life are within every human 
heart; though so often (most often?) hidden 
away, shoved into dark corners, and covered up 
by the rubbish of life. God's ideals are meant to 
keep our lives full of sweet harmony; and they 
will, too, if allowed to. In the inner chamber 
of the soul can be heard distinctly the clear sound 
of the true key, an exquisite " sound of gentle 
stillness," to w^hich all the music of life should be 
set and kept. 

But we need to have our inner ears trained in 
the quiet time, daily, off alone with the Master- 
musician, with His Book at hand to correct the 
inaccuracies of our hearing. Then will come the 
keenness of ear that will keep us from " flat- 
ting '' ; or at least, will make us know when we 
do " flat " ; and will make the sound so disagree- 
ably jarring as to make us reach out eagerly for 
the true pitch, with a bit of prayer to the Master 
of the music for His help. 

"It's Raining Roses Down," 



Practical idealizing is seeing the purpose of 
God under and behind everything that comes, 
and insisting on getting it out into real life. It 
was a man who could see through what is often 
considered an inconvenience, and a disturbance 
of one's plans, who wrote: 



22 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

"It isn't raining rain to me, 
It's raining daffodils; 
In every dimpled drop I see 

Wild flowers on the hills. 
The clouds of gray engulf the day 

And overwhelm the town,— 
It isn't raining rain to me, 
It's raining roses down. 

" It isn't raining rain to me. 

But fields of clover bloom, 
Where any buccaneering bee 

May find a bed and room. 
A health unto the happy, 

A fig for him who frets, — 
It isn't raining rain to me, 

It's raining violets." ^ 

The rain storm that may disarrange things for 
you, isn't to be thought of in itself simply, of 
course, but for the possible good that lies in it. 
It is a means to an end, an end both of beauty, 
and of providing our daily bread. The incon- 
venience it may cause isn't to be thought of ex- 
cept incidentally, in planning to meet and over- 
come it. Overshoes and raincoats and um- 
brellas, and careful drying-up afterwards, and 
all that sort of bother, are simply a bit of the 
toll of life, that v;^e pay for the flov^ers we enjoy, 
and the wheat we eat. 

So sickness is a school. It should not be 
thought of in itself, but only for the flowers it 
* Robert Loveman. 



Ideals. 23 

will bring into bloom, and the finer strength that 
should grow out of it. It may cause sharp pain, 
an upsetting of all one's plans, and real anxiety. 
But these really are only by the way, the bother- 
ing with overshoes and other such storm things, 
the toll on the road, the tuition fee at school. 
Of course it is true that most of us feel the pain 
so sharply, and are so worried over the broken 
plans, and so swept off our feet by the anxiety, 
that we are pretty apt to forget the real thing. 

It's easy not to remember that the storm car- 
ries our bread in its arms ; that beyond the toll- 
gate the road leads up the heights into finer air 
and farther view ; and that school work enriches 
and deepens all the after life. Indeed, if we 
kept these things straighter, and insisted on 
looking ahead, through the storm, to the blue and 
the shine waiting above the gray and the shade, 
we would find the storm blowing over more 
quickly. Pain could do its work faster, and bet- 
ter, too, and be off and away, if we used it, and 
worked with it. 

"Is it raining, little flower? 

Be glad of rain. 
Too much sun would wither thee, 

'Twill shine again. 
The clouds are very black, 'tis true, 

But just beyond them shines the blue, 

"Art thou weary, tender heart? 
Be glad of pain. 



24 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

In sorrow sweetest virtues grow, 

As flowers in rain. 
God watches, and thou wilt have sun. 

When clouds their perfect work have done." 

The tight pinching in money is unhandy and 
bothersome — we use stronger words while the 
pinch is on — but out of it come better manage- 
ment, wise economies; and, yet better, keener 
thinking, and so keener brains for all the other 
questions that come ; keener outlook into life, and 
a keener capacity for the enjoyment of life, if 
— you must underscore that '' if " — if you keep 
your eye steadily on the ideal, the possible good 
waiting your grasp in the difficulty. 

The emergency brings quicker-wittedness, and 
a stronger grasp and use of one's resources, and 
a sturdier grip for the next one. The practical 
idealist reaches an eager hand steadily out 
through all circumstances for the flowers and 
fruit; and gets them, too. 

" Is the road very dreary, 

Patience yet ! 
Rest will be sweeter if thou art weary; 
And after the night cometh the morning cheery. 

Then bide a wee and dinna fret. 

"The clouds have a silver lining, 
Don't forget; 
And though he's hidden, still the sun is shining: 
Courage! Instead of tears and vain repining, 
Just bide a wee and dinna fret." * 
* Torquil MacLeod. 



Ideals. 25 

The Secret of Beauty, 

Our ideals change us. They change the face. 
The refining, gentling process is going on all the 
time, though unknown to us. The face always 
bears the impress of the spirit that reigns within. 
The real secret of sweet womanly beauty, and of 
strong manly face is here, and only here, no- 
where else. 

When Michael Angelo had finished his famous 
colossal statue of David, *' the giant," many of 
his friends who had not seen him during the 
years when he was working upon it in Florence, 
declared with great surprise that he was 
changed; his face was changed. And as they 
looked at the statue, and then at the skilful 
chiseler, it was seen that he had carved his con- 
ception of David, not only into the beautiful 
white stone, but all unconsciously he had carved 
it, too, into the lines of his own beautified, en- 
nobled face. 

A minister who has been preaching for over 
forty years, told recently of two young women 
he had known in his early life. The one was de- 
cidedly homely, commonly so spoken of, but she 
was a Christian, with the highest ideals being 
woven into her daily life. The other was a de- 
cided beauty, but selfish, fond of pleasure-seek- 
ing, and a lover of the gay society that flattered 
her beauty. In mature womanhood the changes 



26 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

that had come into their faces were most strik- 
ing. The homely girl had become a positively 
attractive woman in her face, with its fine gentle- 
ness, and its very features refined by the dom- 
inant spirit of her life. The other's face had 
hardened and wrinkled and coarsened, until the 
word '' homely,'' and a yet less pleasing word 
were suggested by it. 

The creative hand of God is an artist's hand. 
He planned beauty and strength of feature and 
form for women and men. But the plan can 
be worked out only by our earnest help. His 
Spirit in our hearts works out the real rare 
beauty into our faces through our actively work- 
ing with Him. Our ideals will make our faces 
over into what he has planned, if they are al- 
lowed to. 

The Practical Idealist. 



That good word " ideals " has been cheapened 
quite a bit in some minds. Or, it should rather 
be said, that men have very commonly come to 
a cheapened idea of its meaning. For no good 
thing can be cheapened, in the bad sense of that 
word ; though we can have cheapened ideas about 
the finest things. The word '' ideals " is looked at 
by many as they would look at a ragged tramp 
at the kitchen door, with mingled pity and con- 
tempt. That is because it means something un- 



Ideals. 27 

desirable to them. They think of it as meaning 
childish castle-building, immature dreamings, 
visionary imaginings, in the weak meaning of 
that word " visionary." To them " ideals " 
mean something clear out of touch with the 
everyday world of affairs. 

Of course, there are plenty of unpractical peo- 
ple who get hold of things wrong end to. There 
are people who are fond of using the word 
'' ideals," but who don't use it in its true mean- 
ing. It is made to cover up childish fancies, 
half-digested plans, and the like. These people 
are given to talking a good bit, and are apt to 
use a good many adjectives and adverbs, usually 
in the superlative degree ; everything is '' most." 
Whereas the practical idealist is a very quiet, 
matter-of-fact person, more bent on doing than 
on talking. Hard work usually makes the 
tongue slower and more cautious. 

These visionaries without doubt make it 
harder for the true idealist to hold to his ideals. 
For the crowd on the street doesn't think, and 
constantly confuses the two. The practical man 
who quietly insists on holding to his ideals is 
classed with the unpractical visionary. And 
without doubt this has influenced many to pull 
the flag down a bit, instead of letting it fly its 
fine message out at the masthead. Yet this very 
confusion and thoughtless misunderstanding 
make the need all the greater. It won't be so 



28 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

pleasant to keep the flag up. To be misunder- 
stood when one's motives are high and earnest 
is pretty apt to jar and cut; though some have 
cHmbed up to where they ignore and forget the 
misunderstandings, as they push smilingly on. 

Yet of course all this need not keep us from 
clinging with tight fingers to the real thing, with 
its fine grain and its rosy hue; nor from the 
constant uplift of its warm companionship. It 
should not keep us from doing the crowd the 
great service of seeing a flag at the top of the 
pole ; nor better yet, from giving Jesus, the great 
practical Idealist, a clear sounding-board in our 
lives. 

The practical idealist tugging away down in 
the thick of things knows, and loves to remem- 
ber, that Jesus is here, now, alongside you and 
us. Many a churchman, who delights to call 
himself practical, says, with the air of one 
Humoring a fanciful child, " That's a very pretty 
thought ; " and then proceeds to shut it out of 
his practical life. He feels quite sufficient in 
himself for any tug. The other man who knows 
by experience how real that presence is, sings : 
*' I cannot do it alone, 

The waves run fast and high. 

And the fogs close chill around, 
And the light goes out in the sky; 

But I know that we two 

Shall win in the end — 
Jesus and I. 



Ideals. 2g 

"I cannot row it myself, 

My boat on the raging sea; 
But beside me sits Another 

Who pulls or steers with me. 
And I know that we two 
Shall come safe into port — 
His child and He. 

"Coward and wayward and weak, 
I change with the changing sky. 
To-day so eager and brave. 

To-morrow not caring to try; 
But He never gives in, 
So we two shall win — 
Jesus and I. 

"Strong and tender and true. 
Crucified once for me! 
Never will He change, I know, 

Whatever I may be! 
But all He says I must do. 

Ever from sin to keep free. 
We shall finish our course 
And reach home at last — 
His child and He." 

And as he sings his life is full of victory, and of 
uplift for the crowd on the road. 

Many people think of the ideal and practical 
as two utterly different things ; and, more than 
diflferent, as opposed to each other. The prac- 
tical thing to do is not the ideal, they think; 
and the ideal is not practical. Some go to the 
extreme of thinking that having an ideal really 



30 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

hinders, for it makes you unpractical, and vision- 
ary in a bad or weak way. 

There are some who believe in having ideals 
but don't believe they can really be lived out. 
To them the ideal is a good thing to have, even 
as a pretty picture is enjoyable. You look at 
the picture and enjoy its beauty, but with no 
thought entering your mind that it has anything 
to do with your everyday life. Some go a bit 
farther, and think of an ideal as something to 
look up to, with a sort of dim thought that look- 
ing up helps to lift up ; but without an idea of 
getting down to hard work in making the ideal 
a real thing in life. 

Flying the Flag at the Tip-top. 

If in conversation one refers to the true ideal 
toward which conduct and life should be pitched, 
and by which they should be governed, it is 
quite common to hear someone say, *' Oh ! yes, 
of course, that's the ideal, but, you know, we're 
living down in the world." The inference be- 
ing that it is impossible to have such ideals in 
practical life; that we must take things as they 
are, and move along where the crowd goes, and 
as it goes. The remark is generally made with 
a peculiar positiveness of tone and manner, as 
though the whole matter were settled then and 
there, and nothing more could be said. 



Ideals. 31 

Every such remark is a confession of weak- 
ness and defeat. It tells a story of knowing the 
right, and refusing to hold to it, because the 
crowd pulls the other way. It is a cowardly 
pulling down of the flag^ and surrendering to 
the enemy, without so much as a decent show of 
fight. In non-essentials we should follow the 
line of least resistance, saving our strength for 
the things worth while. But in the great es- 
sentials we should never budge by so much as a 
half-hair-width, regardless of resistance. Yet 
we can smile sweetly all the time, with the whole- 
some fragrance of a pure life back of the smile. 
The highest ideals send a fine flavor out into the 
personality. 

There is no greater nor kindlier service we 
can render to those we touch than the tactful 
holding to our ideals, out in the contacts of life ; 
whether at the meal hour, in the business circle, 
in the little group of callers, at the afternoon tea, 
or the more formal social affair. There are some 
who exploit their ideals untactfully; and that is 
not good. Though it is not as bad as those 
who keep their ideals in hiding, even while they 
are being abused, and sneered at, and while 
lower ideals, that are really low ideals, are be- 
ing freely talked. 

But then the cowardliness of some people with 
really high ideals is painful. The social law 
that you must be agreeable, and say only agree- 



32 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

able things in social gatherings, leads many of 
us badly astray in lowering or hiding our flags. 
There is a cowardly fear of being thought of as 
a little unusual, or queer, or marked by some 
oddity. The desire to be thought only well of 
grips us so. It is true it does take thoughtful- 
ness and strength to speak clearly and positively 
of the true ideals among those who do not ac- 
cept them. It takes yet more strength and depth, 
and real touch with the ideal Man, to do it tact- 
fully in such an atmosphere. 

But of course it can be done. And that is a 
part of the life-mission of him who would ring 
true. A wisely chosen word spoken in the social 
circle, where the opposite may be the popular 
thing, spoken gently with a face that uncon- 
sciously fits the word, and a life behind that 
steadies it, is in perfect accord with the most 
rigid social canons. It is just what so many 
need. It tends to bring out to the fore whatever 
odd remnants of conviction there may be in hid- 
ing in that circle. 

We need to train ourselves away from think- 
ing that the sweet serious things of life may not 
properly be brought into any social gathering. 
The common standards of social contacts to 
which so many have been trained simply do not 
make provision for the more thoughtful, serious 
things. There is always a tendency to being 
light and even frivolous. The bright breezy 



Ideals. 33 

good cheer that properly belongs to the social 
hour easily crosses the line into the thoughtless 
and frivolous. 

When a bit of the thoughtful does come in, 
as come in it will, it is quite likely to be sub- 
jected to the indignity of brilliant — or, quite as 
often, maybe oftener, not-brilliant — frivolous- 
ness. And that is the sort of atmosphere in 
which so many have gotten their social training. 
It doesn't fit naturally into such training to re- 
tain sweet seriousness in the midst of the cheery 
good-fellowship and light exchange of the social 
hour. 

Yet it can be done, and there is no finer 
sounding-board for letting our ideals ring and 
sing their music out into human hearts. And 
no music finds more open, grateful hearts for its 
uplift and rhythm. 

"The robin sang out through the rain, 
He waited not a golden day. 
The gladdest thing that he could say 
Might not be needed so again. 
The robin sent his richest strain, 
Adown dim, slanting lines of rain." * 

There comes to mind a scene in a drawing- 
room, one summer afternoon. A group of call- 
ers were chatting with their hostess. One of 
the callers was making the usual sort of frivo- 
* Edith H. Kinney. 



34 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

lous, half-cynical remarks. The hostess was an 
earnest Christian woman, active in service. We 
knew her as believing in the highest ideals, and 
trying to teach them faithfully, and live them 
consistently. Yet she met her guest more than 
halfway in his run of talk, not merely assenting 
laughingly, but suggesting some of the same sort 
and in the same way. 

We could easily see that she was simply fol- 
lowing her earlier social habit, that had been 
fixed before her deeper life had developed. Yet 
she had both the moral conviction and cour- 
age, and the tactful grace of speech and man- 
ner, to have drawn her caller easily up to a 
higher level, through the doorway of his own 
talk, if she had thought to do it. And what a 
blessing it would have been to him ! 

Another similar scene comes to mind. A 
company of young people had gathered for a 
social evening. Among the guests was a young 
woman who insisted on standing on the level of 
her ideals in any gathering, and with any in- 
dividual. A young man who had been introduced 
to her, said, after a little conversation, '' May 
we slip off to a quiet corner for a few minutes, 
where we will not be interrupted? for you 
are the only young woman I have met this even- 
ing who will talk thoughtfully.'' At the even- 
ing's close this young woman and another, a 
friend, were chatting together. The friend was 



Ideals. 35 

thoughtful and earnest, too, but with a strong 
desire to be agreeable that led her to remain on 
the level of the trifling talk in which she found 
others indulging. Now she turned to the first 
young woman mentioned and with much sur- 
prise said, " I saw you talking with Mr. So- 
and-So,'' naming the young man who had made 
the request, " and I wondered how you ever 
stood him, for I was never more bored in my 
life than with him this evening; I was never 
with one who could talk so much of little 
nothings, and be as frivolous as he." 

Each of these, the young man and the second 
young woman, had high ideals, and longed for 
fellowship in them; and yet each lacked the bit 
of quiet courage to give the simple tactful up- 
ward turn to the conversation, lest it might not 
be acceptable. And each suflfered a distinct loss^ 
in his own life, and lost a golden chance to help 
a hungry heart. Whenever one person holds 
steadily to the highest, others will be kept up by 
that very steadiness. 

The Secret of Making Ideals Real. 

The most striking thing to mark keenly about 
ideals, God's ideals, is this : they have been lived. 
The thing can be done because it hus been done. 
They have been lived in one of the worst moral 
periods of history, and in one of the religiously 



36 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

narrowest and most bigoted corners of the 
earth. 

It seems to be pretty well settled now, that 
long ago a Man lived, for as much as thirty- 
three years, who held the highest ideals, and 
never compromised them one whit, in the life he 
lived. Yet he was not removed from the sort of 
life we live. He had to work hard to earn a 
living for himself and his household. He lived 
in a very humble sort of family, where all the 
testings of ideals come closest home. He be- 
longed to a little village community, just such as 
most of us know, and live in, or have lived in. 
And He actually lived his ideals amid such sur- 
roundings,— ideals that have been commonly 
recognized as the moral high-water mark of all 
history. 

God is an idealist. And Jesus came to let men 
see that this ideal God fits perfectly into human 
life, just as it goes on in every-day affairs. Cer- 
tainly no one will think that the world was in an 
ideal condition when Jesus came. Historians 
are agreed that it was in about as bad shape 
morally as a world could get into. And all are 
agreed, too, that this Jesus lived a truly ideal 
life, and at the same time an intensely practical 
life, fitting into things just as he found them. 

Though He was divine in a sense that no one 
else was or can be. He was also human with a 
naturalness and simplicity that none other has 



Ideals. 37 

known, though all may know. That He lived a 
truly human Hfe, just such as common men are 
expected to live, that is, with no special gift of di- 
vine grace beyond what any man may have, is 
clearly shown by the simple but very striking fact 
that is brothers, brought up in the same family, 
did not believe in His divine claim and mission/ 

To them there was nothing in His life as they 
had known Him, such as they supposed there 
should be if He were really the Son of God that 
He said He was. There could be no stronger 
nor simpler evidence of the perfect naturalness 
of the human life He lived in Nazareth, than 
this disbelief by these brothers, who lived with 
Him for years in the same home. 

Yet mark very keenly that Jesus didn't find 
it easy to live His ideals. He was stubbornly 
opposed in them, both at home, and in His home 
village, and out in public life. He had to fight 
for them, and to fight hard, every foot of the 
way. And it was real fighting, too, with moist 
brow, and shut jaw, and earnestly breathed 
prayer. He lived them in the presence of, and 
in spite of, sneers and criticism and cynicism 
and attempted violence. 

And He was a man, a human, as truly a man 
as though only a man, living His life just ex- 
actly as we live ours. That is to say^ He per- 
sonally made choice of these ideals as His own. 
* John vii 13-5. 



38 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

He depended upon His own strong resolution, 
backed by earnest prayer, in keeping true to 
them. He maintained them against all comers; 
just exactly as one must do to-day. 

And, — listen softly, with the ears of your heart, 
— that Man promised to have the same Spirit that 
filled Him and steadied Him, come into each one 
of us, and lead us safely and victoriously along 
the same well-beaten path He traveled. Aye, 
and some of us have found out that that 
wondrous Spirit does come, and does lead along 
that old road up to the heights. Even though 
a tear-misted vision of slips and faults, and at 
times of only partial victories lies behind, yet the 
ideals are sweeter than ever since they have been 
worked into real life. 



THE FINEST FRIENDSHIP: THE 

RHYTHMIC LIVING OF 

TWO TOGETHER. 



The Master Loomsman. 

Clear Thinking Helps Right Living. 

A Choosing Love. 

Love's Sure Marks, 

The Basis of Friendship. 

God's Ideal Friendship Plan. 

''Perfect Music Unto Noble Words.' 

''Even as Christ/' 

The Divine-Human Trinity. 

" Behold a Friend!'' 

A Bit of Red Life. 



"But ye toil up hand in hand, and carry each other's 

burdens. 
Ye commune of hopes and aspirations, the fervent 

breathings of the heart, 
Ye speak with pleasant interchange the treasured 

secrets of affection, 
Ye listen to the voice of complaint and whisper the 

language of comfort, 
And as in a double solitude, ye think in each other's 

hearing." 

Martin F, Tup per. 



THE FINEST FRIENDSHIP. 



The Master Loomsman. 

Friendship is unselfish love between two 
hearts. It is the highest born, and longest last- 
ing, and finest woven of any tie that binds human 
hearts together. It is highest born, for its birth- 
place is the heart of God, where every bit of love 
known among men was born. It is longest 
lasted, because it is so strong. It won't break. 
It never does break. It can't break. It never 
yet has been broken. You might as well 
think of the unseen bands of Orion breaking, or, 
higher up, of a quarrel breaking out between 
God and His Son. For friendship is a bit of 
God's own self even as His Son is. It is longest 
lasted simply because there is no end to it. 

And it is the finest woven. No such bit of 
loom work was ever done. Its strands have been 
picked out with greatest care by the Master 
Loomsman. They have been intertwined by the 
same skilled hand that wove the bands that hold 
the earth true and steady to the sun ; and that 
wove the ties that bind a mother's heart to her 

41 



42 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

child. The finely spun threads are so deftly and 
rhythmically tangled that they withstand all at- 
tempts at breaking. The mark of that loom and 
of that Weaver are upon every bit of this won- 
drous fabric wherever found. 

Friendship is not a native of any one land. It 
is native to all lands. Wherever there is a 
human heart there is its native heath. There it 
may be found growing both sturdy and fine. 
Though it often plays the part of a pilgrim seek- 
ing a home, it is never a foreigner nor a stranger. 
For wherever it is found there is a human heart ; 
and wherever there is a human heart there is the 
heart of God ; and wherever these two hearts are 
friendship is^ and is at home. 

Like God, it is no respecter of persons, nor 
of circumstances. It will not despise the king 
because of the gilt of his trappings ; nor the cot- 
tager because of the bareness of his floor, or 
the spareness of his fare. Into the human heart 
regardless of the outer side it comes to gladden 
and grace, to arouse and inspire. Neither wealth 
nor luxury nor mere mental culture can suc- 
cessfully woo it; and neither poverty nor sick- 
ness nor slander can hinder its coming and stay- 
ing, but may become a spur to call out its fine- 
ness and fragrance all the more. This is true, 
even though it is also true that it is one of the 
rare occurrences to find friendship growing its 
fullest and finest fruit. 



The Finest Friendship. 43 

Friendship has inspired the poet's pen to its 
sweetest^ choicest Hnes. It has brought out the 
best of heart and brain in the discussions of the 
philosopher's porch in olden time. It has done 
more to enrich and refine the letters carried by 
post and niessenger than any other influence. 
It has been the mainspring of action back of 
every great worthy deed ever done. The build- 
ing of nations, the courageous fighting of bat- 
tles, the winning of victories, the penning of 
literature classed as classic — every noble achieve- 
ment of man's hand has been due to its subtle 
touch upon his heart. 

And if anyone is disposed to question this in 
regard to some person or event that he calls to 
mind let him thoughtfully sift down and through 
to the roots, and he will find the warm fertiliz- 
ing presence of friendship there, however hid- 
den below the surface, or tangled with other 
things above. Even Napoleon, who towers so 
high in the realm of mere achievement, and 
who has been so generally dubbed as utterly 
heartless in the sweep of his terrible ambition, 
came strongly under its influence more than once. 
It may well be doubted if his great genius would 
have had the marvelous success that came to him 
had it not been for the subtle power and win- 
some tact of his real friend Josephine. 

Friendship has the daring courage of the man 
defending his home; the clinging tenacity of the 



44 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

mountain goat on the dizzy heights of the far 
diff; the soft tenderness of a mother with her 
new-born babe; the rare judgment of a wise 
woman in her gentle-voiced counseHng; the un- 
failing faithfulness of the heavenly Father in 
his dealing with sinful men; the unflinching 
steadiness of the skilled surgeon swiftly plunging 
his blade into the living flesh; and the fine- 
grained strength of the Son of God as He 
climbed the Calvary steep. 



Clear Thinking Helps Right Living. 

For friendship in its simplest essence is love. 
A friend is a lover with all the strongest, sweet- 
est meaning that hallowed word ever has, or can 
be made to have. And the warm breath of 
love is over all life. The heart of God bends 
tenderly down over all men like a brooding 
mother over her babe. Love comes into human 
life as the soft south wind comes at the end 
of winter. It makes all the year a springtime, 
and every month of the calendar a June. Under 
its warm touch the cold snow crystals of com- 
mon life are compelled to make a way for the 
early crocus, and then, quickly for all the other 
flowers with their fragrance and bloom; and 
soon after for the grain and fruit that keep all 
life alive and vigorous. 



The Finest Friendship. 45 

Where life lives love is. Down the dark dirty 
court of the slum of New York or London, of 
Constantinople or Bombay, it is sure to be found ; 
even as the blades of green grass will grow up 
out of the narrow wedge of soil between the 
rows of brick on the sidewalk, as the ivy finds a 
rooting in the thin crevice on the side of the 
steep rock, and as the pure white lily grows up 
out of the black ooze and slime at the bottom of 
the pond. Among the money changers of Wall 
street, and the London Exchange, and the 
Parisian Bourse, it is as surely doing its gentling 
work under the hardened surface, as among the 
fluttering, gay devotees of fashionable society. 
Though most times you would never guess it 
was so. And if it can grow in such soil it can 
grow everywhere. 

"Upon the marsh mud, dank and foul, 
A golden sunbeam softly fell, 
And from the noisome depths arose 
A lily miracle. 

"Upon a dark, bemired life 

A gleam of human love was flung, 
And lo, from that ungenial soil 
A noble deed upsprung." ^ 

Now It is true that these great words, " friend- 
ship '' and " love," have been both borrowed away 
from their true use, and have been abused. 
* L. M. Montgomery. 



46 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

There is a certain kindly courtesy that has be- 
come very common, that calls a mere acquaint- 
ance a friend. The gentling influence of the 
very word " friend " has seeped into all human 
contacts, softening and mellowing life with its 
fine touch. And that use is not open to criti- 
cism. But one should remember that this is a 
taking of the word away from its own meaning. 
It is a sort of borrowing it to help soften and 
sweeten the common contacts of life And we 
all know full well that life needs all of that sort 
of borrowed help it can get. And the word 
'' friend '' is so rich that it is quite willing to have 
its needy neighbors come in to borrow at its back 
door. 

And love gets badly crowded by much that is 
not love, and so much mixed up with such things 
that men constantly confuse it and them, and 
call things by the fine name of love that have no 
kinship at all with it. And then, too, it must be 
remembered that the words have been stolen, 
maliciously and thievishly stolen, and used as 
labels on bad stuff. There is no end to the bad 
stuff that has been passed about freely under 
these labels. But in all such borrowings, and 
stealings, and mixings, and such kindly usage, 
we must keep our eyes keenly open so as not to 
get the real things and its imitations confused. 

Walking along the street one day down South, 
a thoughtful woman in the group asked, '' What 



The Finest Friendship. 47 

is the difference between love and friendship ? " 
It was a keen question. For the two have been 
much discussed and not always with satisfactory 
results. They have been compared and con- 
trasted to the advantage of '' friendship," and 
the disadvantage of " love.'' It has been quite 
commonly said that friendship is an unselfish 
love that desires no returns; and indeed that 
never thinks of any benefit or advantage to it- 
self, but is concerned only with the one loved. 
And that love is a passionate desire for some 
one, that leads a person to want to have that one 
for his own. 

No word has been so much misunderstood and 
misused and abused as the word " love." In 
Jesus' day its own meaning seemed completely 
lost in the thoughts, and in the lives, and in the 
speech of men. The word was freely and com- 
monly used for that which needed a u and an s 
and a t after the initial / to tell its real meaning. 
Yet Jesus did not hesitate to use the word for the 
real thing, with his own life to bring them to- 
gether again, until the whole world re-learned 
something of the real meaning. 

Yet a little bit of thinking down into the real 
meaning of these words, and of the things they 
stand for, seems to make it very plain that this 
common difference is not right. And if it isn't 
right, then it isn't good. For confused thinking 
makes confused morals and worse than con- 



48 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

fused lives. Clear use of words helps to clearer 
thinking. Clear understanding of truth always 
helps to a better living of it. 



A Choosing Love. 

The shadow stands out blackest when the sun 
is out brightest. It will help here if we can get 
a clear, simple definition of just what love is, and 
so of what friendship is. There is nothing dis- 
cussed more, and maybe understood less. There 
is no word harder to find a definition of, and yet 
no word that can be more simply defined. 

Love is the thoughtful outgoing of one's 
whole nature to another. It is really an act of 
the will, though most times unconsciously so. It 
belongs distinctly in the realm of choice. It is 
not essentially an emotion merely, though it 
sweeps all the emotional power of a man like 
the whirlwind sweeps down the valley. It is 
not of the heart primarily, though it absolutely 
controls the heart. It is wholly in itself a mat- 
ter of choice. The will gathers up all the in- 
formation at hand, and displays it skilfully be- 
fore the heart until it is enraptured and com- 
pletely swept along as the will meant it should 
be. 

" — When a soul, by choice and conscience, doth 
Throw out her full force on another soul. 
The conscience and the concentration both 



The Finest Friendship. 49 

Make mere life, love. For life in perfect whole 

And aim consummated, is love in sooth, 

As nature's magnet-heat rounds pole with pole/* * 

This does not mean at all that a man usually 
thinks of love that way ; nor that he is conscious 
of doing the thing in this way. Yet this is what 
is done in greater or less degree wherever there 
is love; and it is the greater degree where the 
love grows strong. Of course this is talking 
about the real thing, as it grew up in the heart of 
God, and grows up in human hearts. 

We must remember that there are the im- 
mature stages of love. There is a great deal of 
what may, for lack of a better word, be called 
** chance '' or " unchoosing " love. That is to 
say, an attachment or liking grows up between 
two who are thrown together constantly, with- 
out any element of choosing entering in. So 
brothers and sisters grow up side by side. They 
have no choice in being there in the same fam- 
ily with the others. Mere contact brings this 
*' chance " or " unchoosing " love, in which 
choice plays no part. Though this may at any 
point begin to grow up into the real love that 
chooses, and of course does so constantly, in 
countless numbers of instances. 

Many marriages are made, in which, while 
each of course chooses the other, yet the ele- 
ment of mere chance, an unchoosing nearness 
* Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



so Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

and liking, plays by far the larger part, and so 
sooner or later they are separated because that 
sort of love can't stand the brunt of real life. 
The easy modern courts furnish no end of il- 
lustrations here. Yet all this so-called '' chance '' 
or '' unchoosing " love furnishes fertile soil for 
the coming of the real thing. Out of it there is 
constantly growing, usually by imperceptible 
stages, a choosing love. This may be called 
an immature stage of real love. 

Then there are things that are merely like 
love. The word '^ love '' is constantly used in 
daily talk for that which is not love, though it 
has a near likeness to it. The word '' like '' is a 
really strong word. It is even given by the dic- 
tionaries as a synonym for love, and is so used 
constantly. Yet it suggests only the impression 
that things or persons make upon us, but with no 
answering suggestion of what we may choose 
to do as a result of that impression. Therein it 
is radically different from love. It should be 
used much oftener where the word '' love " is 
now commonly used. Yet this is not meant at 
all to criticise the usage, but only to help us to 
clearer thinking, and so into the clover fields of 
real love. 

And then, even more than these, there is 
the constant mixture of love, real love, with 
base, bad motives and emotions. Much that is 
not pure and good gets so mixed up in the 



The Finest Friendship. 51 

human heart with real love that it is impossible 
for the human eye to see the line between. 
Selfishness is a foul poison ivy that has over- 
spread all life until we even fail to recognize it 
as a poison. Its tendrils are very small and 
thin, but of remarkable toughness, and with a 
peculiarly tenacious, clinging clutch. Its lean 
pointed fingers run in everywhere. They reach 
in, and coil themselves around the purest, holiest 
things, and into the most hallowed corners of 
the saintliest of hearts. Selfishness takes on the 
color of its surroundings until the keenest eye 
is deceived, and the most thoughtful heart be- 
fooled. No corner, and no thing seem quite 
free of its subtle slimy touch. 

Love's Sure Marks. 



Yet the real thing of love can be recognized 
surely and not slowly. It has certain charac- 
teristics that never fail. They are often imitated 
in part, but they cannot be imitated successfully 
enough to befool the thoughtful eye, or to stand 
the sharp test of actual life. It costs too much. 
The imitators balk at paying. 

Love's first characteristic is this: an intense 
longing to do something for the one loved. Love 
must do something for the other. It abhors in- 
action. There is a constant thinking even in its 
sleep, of what can be done for the other ; a con- 



5^ Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

stant restless seeking to do it. But mark keenly, 
the thought of any return never enters in, not 
even by so much as the shadow of the toe of 
the boot at the crack of the door. This is the 
first and last and chief characteristic of love. 
It lies at the very tap-root of all else. There is 
no love whenever, underneath whatever else may 
be there, this is not the mainspring of all that 
is done. 

A second characteristic grows naturally up out 
of this love: love is utterly self-forgetful in its 
planning for the other. That is the common 
way of saying it. And yet it isn't the best way, 
not even a good way. For there is a self-for- 
getfulness that is not good, and so is even bad 
in its effects. There is something that is higher 
than self- forget fulness, and that is self-remem^ 
brance for the other's sake ; thinking of yourself, 
and then deliberately putting yourself aside for 
the sake of the other. This is really the meaning 
that people have in mind many times, maybe 
most times, when they use that word '' self- 
forgetful." The real meaning is really the 
reverse of the word so commonly used for it. 

Love thinks of itself; and then thoughtfully 
puts itself off to one side, so far as may be good 
or best for the one loved. It thinks of itself that 
it may the more intelligently give the other one 
the preference. And there is yet more; it 
thinks of itself constantly that so it may not 



The Finest Friendship. 53 

become in any way a burden or a hindrance to 
the other. 

A third characteristic is a willingness to sac- 
rifice for the one loved. This is simply the 
second characteristic in its next and finest stage. 
Sacrifice is the voluntary giving of yourself out 
for another to the point of pain; that is, until 
you feel it, really feel it. It must be voluntary; 
for if you can't avoid the hurting thing or ex- 
perience, it is only suffering or privation, not 
sacrifice. It must bring you real cutting pain, 
else it may be merely selfish adjustment, or self- 
gratification. Sacrifice is choosing to let a knife 
cut in until you wince, and maybe have to rally 
all your power to hold steady, that so the other 
one may be helped. There is a great deal of suf- 
fering that is not sacrifice; because it can't be 
helped, or avoided. Love can avoid sacrifice; 
but for the loved one's sake, it won't. 

There is another mark that is peculiar to love, 
and is unfailing. Love never fails to play the 
part of the surgeon when need be. It will un- 
hesitatingly stain the razor- edged blade with 
some of the life-blood of the one loved, if so 
purer and stronger life may come. Yet it is 
always done with love's own unequalled skill. 
This is a great test; the severest, would j^ou 
say ? the surest ? There is nothing harder to do, 
and harder yet to do skilfully, cutting as deep as 
the bad growth, not too deep, swiftly, surely. 



54 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

steadily, and then with equal skill binding up the 
wound, and nursing it until healed. Many a life 
has been badly hurt because love was not allowed 
a free hand here. Love itself never faileth in its 
faithfulness^ nor its skill. 

And love longs for fellowship with the one 
loved. Yet here again the longing is up on the 
highest plane. There may be a longing for fel- 
lowship that is selfish^ that desires it for its own 
enjoyment. But the driving, controlling purpose 
under love's longing for fellowship is that the 
loved one may be brought out into fullness of 
life, and of the enjoyment of life, even as the 
flower under the sunshine. And if this seems 
like getting the thing keyed up too high for true 
music, remember that love will deny itself fel- 
lowship if that would be better for the other. 

" Love : — What a volume in a word, an ocean in a 

tear, 
A seventh heaven in a glance, a whirlwind in a sigh, 
The lightning in a touch, a millennium in a moment, 
What concentrated joy or woe in blest or blighted love ! 
For it is that native poetry springing up indigenous to 

Mind, 
The heart's own-country music thrilling all it chords, 
The story without an end that angels throng to hear, 
The word, the king of words, carved on Jehovah's 

heart ! 
Go, call thou snake-eyed malice mercy, call envy honest 

praise, 
Count selfish craft for wisdom, and coward treachery 

for prudence, 



The Finest Friendship. 55 

Do homage to blaspheming unbelief as to bold and free 

philosophy, 
And estimate the recklessness of license as the right 

attribute of liberty, — 
But with the world, thou friend and scholar, stain not 

this pure name; 
Nor suffer the majesty of Love to be likened to the 

meanness of desire: 
For Love is no more such, than seraphs' hymns are 

discord. 
And such is no more Love, than Etna's breath is 

summer." ^ 

These are some unfailing marks of love. 
Whenever they are lacking love is either absent, 
or, is being so crow^ded down into a corner that 
it can't show its real self. This real thing of 
love with its roots down in the choosing power, 
knows no break, no sagging, no end. The tug- 
ging of its strands by the common frictions of 
life only make its fiber tougher. To keep this 
fine face of love clearly before us all the time 
will make us keener and quicker to recognize 
the things that are not the real thing, but that 
use its name. 



The Basis of Friendship. 

Friendship is peculiarly love between two. 
Solitude is not a natural soil for the growth of 
this fine plant. While solitude is an essential 
* Martin F. Tupper. 



S6 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

to strong life, it is only as a training in the 
making and maturing of character for service 
out in the crowd. There cannot be fully ma- 
tured loved without two who are fully joined in 
the love. The human unit is not one, but two; 
each distinct and complete in itself, but each 
needing to find and fit into its answering self 
in another in order to make the higher, fuller, 
complete personality. 

There are certain things in the two that draw 
them together however widely separated; that 
lead them to recognize each other ; and that bind 
them together so close and tight that no wedge 
edge is thin enough to get in between. Friend- 
ship depends on likes and differences; things in 
which the two are akin, and other things in 
which they are different, but with these differ- 
ences fitting into each other so nicely as to make 
a perfect union. 

These differences and likes underlying friend- 
ship run side by side, so intertwined that it is 
quite impossible to draw an exact line between. 
They run along the four natural lines of the 
physical, the mental, the spirit that animates, and 
then the personality, — that which includes these 
with an indefinite something more added. And 
they extend, too, to certain acquired traits, 
to the controlling aim or purpose, and the degree 
of culture attained. 

There are persons who are attractive to each 



The Finest Friendship. 57 

other physically without much affinity otherwise, 
and, uncontrolled, this may lead into grave 
wrong. There are those whose ways of thinking 
fit into each other perfectly, not because they 
think alike, nor because by the attraction of 
opposites they are radically different, but because 
they are both alike and different in just the 
degree that makes perfect oneness and fellow- 
ship. Many a two are drawn together because 
of the strong affinity of spirit, though far apart 
in the degree of culture that has come, or in 
the mental traits that mark each. Full friend- 
ship is possible only where there is the full 
mutual drawing together, and the full supple- 
menting of each by the other in all these regards. 

Now, of course, there are a great many 
partial friendships. Love is ever busily working 
out the best possible adjustment of human lives. 
Frequently two will have a very warm, real 
friendship for each other in certain directions. 
As long as their contacts are confined to the 
things, or one thing, in which they are alike and 
sympathetically different, there is a real love, 
and a real, rare enjoyment. But outside of those 
things they are as far apart as the earth's mag- 
netic poles. Their differences are radical and 
not sympathetic; they tend to pulling away in- 
stead of drawing together. 

Then there are partial friendships in point of 
time; they don't last. Many times that is be- 



58 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

cause the early friendship was a superficial one, 
the root not going down into the sub-soil of the 
real life. And many times there is this touch of 
the tragic in such partial friendships, that the 
two have failed to keep pace in their growth. 
The one has grown; his nature has deepened, 
his outlook broadened, his heart mellowed, his 
mind taken on a keener edge; the ideals have 
refined, and the heart longings are less easily 
satisfied. 

The other has gone grubbingly along, sleepily 
content to stay where he was. In growing and 
in not growing they have grown apart. Yet 
there may be even here a partial friendship, a 
tender clinging to a personality, once attractive, 
and to attaching memories; but it no longer 
yields the sweets it once did. 

But the finest, fullest friendship, the full- 
grown thing, can be only between the two whose 
differences are all sympathetic, and whose likes 
all harmonize, and who will grow together, side 
by side, through the years up to the outer rim of 
time. Wherever these differences and likes 
blend most perfectly and fit themselves together 
most nicely and fully, there only can the finest 
friendship come. And only as these two grow 
together, each keeping pace with the other, and 
each gently keeping the other's pace up with 
his own, can that finest friendship grow into its 
full flower and fruit. 



The Finest Friendship. 59 

"What is the best a friend can be 
To any soul, to you or me? 
Not only shelter, comfort, rest — 
Inmost refreshment unexpressed ; 
Not only a beloved guide 
To thread lifers labyrinth at our side, 
Or, with love's torch lead on before; 
Though these be much, there :-et is more. 

"The best friend is an atmosphere, 
Warm with all inspiration dear, 
Wherein we breathe the large free breath 
Of life that has no taint of death. 
Our friend is an unconscious part 
Of every true beat of our heart; 
A strength, a growth, whence we derive 
God's health that keeps the world alive. 

"Can friend lose friend? Believe it not! 
The tissue whereof life is wrought, 
Weaving the separate into one, 
No end hath, nor beginning; spun 
From subtle threads of destiny 
Finer than thought of man can see. 
God takes not back His gifts divine; 
While thy God lives, thy friend is thine.*' * 

God's Ideal Friendship Plan, 

And when one calmly thinks the thing thought- 
fully through, the clearer does it become that 
such friendship can exist only between the two 
that God made and meant for each other, — 
a man and a woman joined together by the same 
^ Lucy Larcom. 



6o Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

hand that made them. The greatest possibilities 
of friendship can be reaHzed only between a man 
and a woman because the elements that go to 
make the strongest, fullest friendship are found 
here in full measure, and only here. And fur- 
ther because, as we shall find a little later in this 
series of talks, the finest fruitage of friendship 
is possible only between two such. 

It is fairly fascinating to see how fully this 
law of likes and differences, which underlies all 
friendship, is found fully developed and illus- 
trated here, and only here. This comes out 
simply and clearly as we note the likes and dif- 
ferences between man and woman. 

But first of all certain unnatural differences 
between the two should be noticed, and noticed 
keenly. It is both remarkable and pathetic to 
mark the striking fact that woman peculiarly 
has been the victim of ignorance and prejudice 
and evil passions for long centuries. It is as 
though the spirit of evil, knowing well her re- 
markable power, has aimed its heaviest batteries 
at her. As a result her character and dominant 
characteristics have been radically affected. 
Jesus' marvellous influence is nowhere seen 
more than in the change that has come in 
woman's condition since He was here. Where 
He is least known, her condition is lowest ; where 
best known, highest. Yet even in Christian 
lands much of the old-time influence still clings. 



The Finest Friendship. 6i 

These unnatural differences may be put thus : 
Woman is more swayed by her feelings. She 
is said to reach conclusions, not by logical men- 
tal processes, but rather by a sort of intuition, 
by which is usually meant a sort of lower though 
keen perception, rather than by the higher 
thoughtful consideration. Then woman's mind 
is taken up more with the little details of things, 
with no apparent power or disposition to grasp 
the larger outlines of a question, and see it in its 
proportions. 

These are some of the things in which 
woman is commonly thought of as being dif- 
ferent from man, and indeed inferior to him. 
And in large measure much of all this is true. 
But it should be keenly remembered that these 
are unnatural differences, due to the long-time 
slavery to which she has been subjected, and still 
is so largely. It is striking that these same 
things just as sharply characterize the classes of 
men who have been held down as woman has 
been. These unnatural differences should be 
laid aside now, that we may see clearly the true 
differences as God planned them for the making 
of life's friendship. 

The natural differences between man and 
woman bring out the natural likenesses be- 
tween the two. They are really differences in 
likenesses ; the differences in texture of the same 
fabric; such differences in likes, such diversity 



62 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

in unity, as work together for the perfect con- 
dition in which friendship can do its full work. 

First of all, there is the physical difference. 
He is built for strength; she, not for strength, 
but altogether for the most delicate and difficult 
task entrusted to human hands. He is larger, 
as he needs to be for work; she, smaller, for 
her task needs the strength of fineness rather 
than the mere brute strength. His greater 
strength is a natural guard and protection for 
her more difficult task. Here are physical like- 
nesses and differences that mutually attract, and 
that work perfectly together for love's union in 
life's tasks. It is a bit of the horrid irony of 
sin's influence that, so largely, the burdens re- 
quiring physical strength have been thrust upon 
woman. Even in Christian lands she is still 
made largely the household drudge. 

Then there is the mental difference ; woman is 
naturally subtler and keener and swifter in her 
mental processes. Man is slower and bulkier. 
Though the centuries of slavery have made us 
slow in discovering, and slower yet in acknowl- 
edging this ; and, of course, many have not, and 
won't do either. But the finer physical texture 
of her brain points to the difference. The dif- 
ference and likeness here not only attract each 
other, but taken together make the complete 
human mentality. 

A third difference is in the sphere of action 



The Finest Friendship. 63 

of each. Man is meant for leadership; woman 
for guidance and inspiration and co-operation 
in his leadership. All men are not leaders, even 
in a small way. And woman has often revealed 
rare leadership, especially in emergencies, when 
no philosopher's lantern could disclose even a 
scraggly scrap of a man. But these are excep- 
tions on both sides. The two together make the 
perfect action of life; he, with his rugged 
strength, and larger-grained fiber in the lead; 
she, with her gentle pervasiveness, by his side, 
a bit in the shadow, making and mioulding him, 
as he in turn makes and moulds the events and 
actions of life. 

Then there is the difference, so difficult of 
definition, told by the words '' masculine " and 
" feminine." It runs through the other diflfer- 
ences, but is something yet more. Practically 
that word '' masculine " means strength, and the 
word " feminine '' means the heart qualities; it 
might be said, the soft qualities, in the fine, 
strong meaning of '' soft.'' Fineness as con- 
trasted with strength is the essential meaning of 
" feminine " ; and is revealed in the softness of 
woman's flesh, the gentle rounding of her smaller 
face, the finer texture of her body and brain, 
the subtler processes of her thinking, and the 
dominant tenderness of her heart. Strength as 
contrasted with fineness is the essential meaning 
of ** masculine," and is shown in his larger build, 



64 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

his harder muscles, his larger grain, and in both 
his mental and emotional processes. 

These are some of the likenesses and differ- 
ences that mutually blending and interacting 
make up the full human being, and that furnish 
the ideal condition for friendship's sweet, strong 
life. 



''Perfect Music Unto Noble Words/* 

It is most striking, and brings a fresh tinge 
of awe over one's spirit in thinking of the mar- 
vellous Jesus, to recall how his character 
blended, and blended perfectly, all of the essen- 
tial traits that we class as masculine and fem- 
inine. 

The strongest man is drawn irresistibly to 
Jesus as furnishing that ideal of manhood which 
he longs to attain. And the gentlest, woman- 
liest woman finds herself as surely looking up 
to Him as embodying all that goes to make up 
her perfect womanhood. He was the ideal man 
because the likenesses and differences that mark 
man and woman blend in Him perfectly. 

Is not this a bit of God's plan in the ideal 
friendship? that man and woman living to- 
gether in the union of love shall each so absorb 
the life of the other, that each shall become a 
perfect human being, even while retaining the 



The Finest Friendship. 65 

distinctive traits; and that both together shall 
make the perfected human unit. This was Ten- 
nyson's thought as, with keen discrimination, he 
penned his exquisite lines in *' The Princess/' 

" For woman is not undevelopt man, 
But diverse: could we make her as the man, 
Sweet love were slain : his dearest bond is this, 
Not like to like, but like in difference. 
Yet in the long years liker must they grow; 
The man be more of- woman, she of man; 
He gain in sweetness and in moral height. 
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; 
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care. 
Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind; 
Till at the last she set herself to man. 
Like perfect music unto noble words; 
And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 
Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers, 
Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, 
Self -reverent each and reverencing each, 
Distinct in individualities, 
But like each other e'en as those who love. 
Then comes the statelier Eden back to men: 
Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and 

calm: 
Then springs the crowning race of humankind." ^ 

Full growth of character requires two, two 
in one, that two who while distinct and separate 
are yet one. For character needs an atmosphere 
of love for its full growth; a free admiring, 
thoughtful love of which it is the absorbing 
* Tennyson, 



66 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

object and center. Only so can it grow into full 
size, and into that fineness of quality native to 
it. And character needs to love for its full 
growth, too. It needs an object that will draw 
out its love, and draw it out continually, and to 
the full ; a love based upon respect and admira- 
tion. Man must love. We live only as we love. 

"Let us love, let us live, 
For the acts correspond"^ 

There must be some one upon whom we may 
lavish out freely and fully the love and devo- 
tion of the heart. 

"The night has a thousand eyes. 
And the day but one. 
Yet the light of the bright world dies 
With the dying sun. 

"The mind has a thousand eyes 
And the heart but one, 
Yet the light of a whole life dies 
When its love is done." 

Humanity exists in duality. It takes two to 
make one. This is the higher arithmetic of 
hum.an life. Each is but half, and when both 
halves come together, and then grow together, 
then is perfected the love-plan of God for each, 
and for both. When two such hearts find each 
other, and are joined together by the ordinance 
^ Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



The Finest Friendship. (>^ 

of man, it is merely a ratifying of the act 
of God already done. The two are made one 
legally and technically when, by the wise and 
necessary provision of law, the words are spoken 
in the exchange of sacred vows, and in the 
sanction of clerical lips. 

They were already one in heart when the holy 
flame of a discerning choosing love welded the 
two together. They become one in life, as 
through the years, with gracious steady self- 
discipline, they grow into oneness of purpose and 
habit and mutual attainments. It is not the one- 
ness of subserviency, one yielding to the other; 
but of co-operation, each to the other; two 
strong, growing lives, each maturing fully in 
himself under the gracious influence of the other, 
and each fitting fully into the other. 

''Even as Christ!' 



Now, of course, it is true that there is a teach- 
ing of the meaning of conjugal love quite dif- 
ferent from all this. It is quite commonly said 
that the love between the sexes that leads to the 
life union, is not such a high unselfish thing as 
this. It is supposed to be the love that desires 
to have the other for its own possession and 
advantage and enjoyment. And in common ex- 
perience this usually means that he is the one 
who possesses, and follows the bent of his de- 



68 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

sires; and that she is the one who bends and 
yields to his desires. Here is a bit of that 
same thought of woman already spoken of that 
has kept her under the thumb of man's rule and 
desire and passion. 

It is altogether likely that a good many won't 
agree with the way the thing is being put in 
these quiet talks, and will insist on so not agree- 
ing. Yet will these friends kindly notice a thing 
that seems positively startling when put along- 
side of the common conception of the conjugal 
relation? It is something said by Paul. Aye, 
listen softly, it is something taught to Paul by 
the Spirit of his Master. Paul taught that a 
husband's love for his wife is to be the same as 
Christ's love for the Church.^ This is putting 
the relation between the two on the purest, 
highest, holiest ground imaginable. There can 
be none higher. Brought into the atmosphere 
of life as it actually is this is nothing short of 
startling. The purity and unselfishness of Jesus' 
love for man has never been questioned. It 
has become the standard by which all loves are 
judged. At the utmost cost of pain, and the 
intensest tenderness of devotion, and the keenest 
self-remembering unselfishness, he lived for 
others, and then gave His life out for them. 

And mark very keenly why He did this, as 
Paul puts it here: that He might present this 
^ Ephesians v 125-27. 



The Finest Friendship. 69 

body of redeemed, purified men to Himself. 
Ah! His love was a possessory love after all. 
Yes ; but He wanted to possess them as His own 
for their sakes. His whole thought was of those 
for whom He gave His life. His love was 
wholly concerned for the other. Utterly unsel- 
fish, putting itself to the severest pain and dis- 
cipline, with no thought of anything but the 
other one, this was Jesus' love. And this, we are 
taught, is to be the husband's love, and by 
inference the love of each for the other. In all 
his thought of his wife, and all his life with her, 
the husband is to be swayed and controlled by 
the same self-remembering unselfish love that 
swayed Jesus in the Nazareth home, the wood- 
working shop, and as He walked out of the 
Jerusalem gate toward the Calvary hill. This 
is His thought who planned this holy union of 
lives. 



The Divine-Human Trinity. 

There is a question that many a heart is ask- 
ing just now as we talk together. It is this : how 
shall the two that belong together surely get to- 
gether? There seems to be so many slips. 
There is so much that works persistently against 
this great ideal plan of God. Your heart says 
with a soft distinctness and a bit of a quiver in 
its eager beat : " How can I be sure to find my 



70 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

other answering self ? " Well, it's a great de- 
light to tell you that there is a way; and a very 
simple way it is, and as sure as simple. It has 
never been known to fail yet. 

You know some of the old German philos- 
ophers taught that perfect love requires three 
for its maturity. There need to be the two 
who belong together and are bound together in 
love; and then a third one who draws out to 
himself the love of each, and whose love is 
drawn out fully toward each. So their love 
for each other finds new expression, and so new 
strength, in this third one whom each loves so 
devotedly. 

This is the picture the Old Book gives of God 
Himself. It is said that He exists in three, or, 
as three. By inference perfection of being exists 
only where three are perfectly joined in one. A 
touch of reverent awe must always linger in the 
thought that the nearest human likeness to God 
is that wondrous human trinity, father and 
mother and child. The two that are one because 
of love, with a third one who comes as a direct 
fruit and result of their mutual love. 

It is this same thought that underlies the words 
we are taught to use for God, " Father,'' '' Son," 
and " Spirit." These words themselves imply 
the Father-love bringing the Son, and these to- 
gether bringing another, who is so perfectly one 
with them, that only the word '' Spirit " can be 



The Finest Friendship. 71 

used for Him. He is the spirit of both Father 
and Son. 

Now here seem to be the key to the true 
friendship, and the simple answer to your earnest 
question. The divine trinity is Father, Son, and 
Spirit. The ideal human trinity is father and 
mother and child. Now there is a link between 
these two, the divine-human trinity, a new trin- 
ity, through which there comes to be the dis- 
tinctively human trinity. The man and woman 
who belong together, are drawn together 
by the third One, who is really the first 
One. 

He made each. He made them to fit together 
as two halves of a perfect whole. Only He 
knows the secret of love by which two can be 
made one. It is only through Him that the 
human heart ever knows love. He draws out 
to Himself the love of each, to the full, as no 
human being ever can. He puts into each the 
great tender passion for the other, and the yet 
greater, and yet more tender passion for Him- 
self. 

Love is really a bit of Himself in them draw- 
ing them to Himself and to each other, even as 
the natural parts of any whole will come to- 
gether when unhindered. This is the great trin- 
ity, the trinity of trinities. With deepest awe 
at the marvels of God's love for man, it can be 
truly said this is the one perfect trinity, the 



72 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

divine-human trinity, the perfect union of God 
' and man. 



''Behold a Friend!'' 

You are asking, *' How can I be sure of find- 
ing my other answering self? with more em- 
phasis on that word *' sure '' than voice or un- 
derscoring of pen can tell. This is the simple 
way: let your first Friend, whose love for you 
sent Him up the Calvary steep, let Him have 
the utmost devotion of your heart without any 
reserve. Your heart belongs to Him. He longs 
for it. It won't be a heart really until it answers 
to His longing; for it acts its part as a heart 
only as it beats in full rhythm with His own. 

Get into that rhythm. Make it full and strong. 
Let nothing break it, nor disturb a single one of 
its throbbing beats. That's the first thing; as 
simple as it can be. But it is absolutely first. 
There can be no second until there is a first. 
Please remember, we are not talking about being 
saved, nor about becoming a Christian; but just 
about how to find your other answering self. 
This is the one sure way. There is no second. 

The next step in this way is this: ask your 
first Friend to bring your other self to you, and 
to bring you to your other self. Ask Him to 
make you ready for the other one. Ask Him 
to bring that other one into the same bond of 



The Finest Friendship. 73 

friendship with Himself that you are in. Ask 
Him to make the other ready for you. Ask 
simply, with the confident expectancy that knows 
the result. Keep asking, for it may take some 
time to work out the answer to these requests 
of yours. 

It likely will. Maybe it'll take a good bit of 
time. It's quite apt to. You need changing 
quite likely, re-shaping and refining And that 
takes time. The other one does too, likely. The 
more you yield to your first Friend's touch 
daily, the surer and quicker will come the full 
answer to your prayer. Never think of being 
discouraged because you don't know as much 
as your eagerness covets. 

Better, infinitely better, beyond all odds of 
comparison, to live alone with your ideal kept 
pure and strong in your heart, than ever to 
lose it, or to lower it by so much as the tenth 
part of a barleycorn's height. But then don't 
bother about that: you won't need to live alone. 

Be patient, as well as always true; 

And Nature, some sweet day, 

Will give to thee the lay 
That thy yearning heart thrills to. 

In the sweet fullness of time your first Friend 
will bring your human friend and you together ; 
and then the new heavens and the new earth 
will have come for you. Then you will sing: 



74 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

" God never loved me in so sweet a way before ; 
*Tis He alone who can such blessing send. 
For when His love would new expression find, 
He brought thee to me, and said, ' Behold a friend! ' " 

And if you have reached over the line in your 
life where that question is being asked, because 
for you the sacred union has been made, 
maybe here is the simple pathway for you into 
yet more and better. Many a true union of 
hearts has been brought about by the first 
Friend, though His part was not recognized, or 
only thought of very vaguely. To recognize the 
part He has had in your happiness, and to let 
Him fully in now as first Friend to each and 
both, will bring yet greater sweets, and finer. 

And — softly, very softly — if, maybe, some- 
times in your heart you half wonder if you 
slipped a bit, just a little bit, back there in your 
choosing and deciding, and then quickly chide 
yourself for the unbidden thought and push it 
resolutely away, yet only to find it insistently 
using some door-crack to come in again — if so, 
or more than that maybe, remember, this same 
path will surely lead to two new hearts coming 
into a new union of hearts and lives. Yes, it is 
even so. 



A Bit of Real Life. 

Now, the best part of all this simple homely 



The Finest Friendship. 75 

talk about the finest friendship is yet to come." 
It is a story, a heart story, a simple bit out of 
real life. But it is of the sort that is sacred, 
because it has to do with the things of the in- 
nermost heart. Such things can be told only to 
a very very few, and then only in softest tones, 
and only at such times as the heart-mood, tender 
and soft, has sway. It is told here now only 
that others — answering hearts — may be helped 
a bit in waiting, and praying, and keeping true 
until the morning of their new day breaks up the 
east. 

It is about the coming together of two whose 
lives have been joined for years now, while their 
hearts are growing more and more into one, as 
the ripening gray is coming. It is interesting to 
note that the woman's part of the story comes 
first. Into her heart there gradually came dur- 
ing her tender teens high ideals of life^ and of its 
aims and personal relations. They came gradu- 
ally, increasing in clearness of outline and in 
strength of conviction. She believed, and be- 
lieves that they were put into her heart by no 
human thought or touch, but by Him whom she 
has long known as her first Friend. 

By and by she was led to begin praying about 
the one life-friendship, which is ever the chief 
thing in the making of a life. The prayer took 
this simple shape: that God would bring to her 
the man of His choice for her; and that He 



76 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

would be blessing and guarding him then wher- 
ever he was. That habit and undercurrent of 
praying went on steadily for nearly eight years, 
while she was busy with the duties of her daily 
life. There was no outer sign all those years 
that the answer was coming ; but the ideals stood 
out more and more clearly, and the convictions 
struck their roots deeper into the sub-soil of her 
life, as she keenly observed the habit of life 
round about, and quietly believed and prayed on. 

Then there began to come premonitions, spirit- 
suggestions, that the answer was coming, and 
was near at hand. There still lingers a great 
touch of tender awe over that wondrous group 
of simple spirit-indications that came, scattered 
through several months. They may not be put 
on paper, but only told, at rare intervals, as one 
tells a thing of the heart, in the twilight-glow 
of an open fire, and in the hushed yet eager voice 
of one who feels the tender presence of the 
Master's own wondrous self. 

In the stillness of her inner soul came again 
and again the soundless but distinct voice, tell- 
ing of his coming who was yet unseen and un- 
known. And sometimes he seemed brought into 
her presence for a moment's clear, unforgetable 
look into his face and eyes. But even soft 
spoken words can't tell the quiet spell that held 
her spirit in its gentle thrall at those times. It 
was when the year was at the spring, that these 



The Finest Friendship. 77 

buddings of the springtime of her new Hfe were 
coming. 

The calendar shows that his story begins after 
the beginning of hers. During the first three 
years, and a Httle more, of her praying, a change 
was gradually coming in his inner life. There 
came a distinct spirit-crisis which made a radical 
change in him, and has affected his whole life 
since. As the new adjustment of his life and 
plans came he began praying daily that God 
would choose for him his life-friend, and bring 
them together, and that He would be blessing 
and shaping her character day by day. 

Each was praying exactly the same, though all 
unknown to the other. They think this points 
unmistakably to a common source of the two 
prayers. And his praying continued daily for 
four years and a half, while his eyes reverently 
looked, and his heart sometimes wondered where 
she was, and his habit of caution held him stead- 
ily to his knees that no mistake might be made. 

Then they met. Their homes were hundreds 
of miles apart. It would certainly seem that in 
the ordinary course of life they would not have 
met. But the invisible hand was steadily at 
work. Unexpected circumstances took each 
hundreds of miles away from home to the place 
of meeting. Unknown and still unexplained dif- 
ficulties, in apparently trifling matters, which 
would have prevented one of the journeys were 



78 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

overcome. They met. The circumstances of the 
meeting were pecuHarly adapted to his reveaHng 
his whole inner self to her, though unconsciously 
to himself. The first decision was to be hers. 

Then came the recognition, and then the mel- 
lowing and deepening of acquaintance into the 
holiest of all emotions that can grip and sway 
the human heart. The union of hearts was com- 
plete. Then came the union of lives. And now 
years have gone by. They have been full of 
the common experiences of life; for these two 
have had their full share of hard work. 

Problems and suffering have played their full 
part; but there has been a deep unfailing peace, 
and an ecstatic joy in the midst of these ripening 
experiences. And they insist on saying that 
their life is just at the spring, the maturing 
spring of June. Their calendar is kept open at 
June. May many another follow them into the 
same simple path they found, where a Friend is 
waiting to lead into this new Eden of God. 



HOME: WHERE LOVE REIGNS, AND 
TRAINS. 



" Love, and the Smiling Face of Her.' 

The Birthplace of Institutions. 

The Genius of Home. 

The Holy of Holies. 

The Nursery of Full-Grown Souls. 

The Birth of a Home. 

The Meaning of Love. 

The Real Test. 

The Nazareth Home. 



"A spirit dwells by the fireside 

When the patter of falling rain 
Trembles the leaves of the drooping trees 

And drips on the window pane. 
O, cold and gray is the world outside, 

When the heav'ns grow dark above, 
But within, within, at the glowing hearth 

Is the tender spirit of love! 

" Our genius there at the fireside 

Whispers a thousand things. 
' O, life is drear and the world is wide, 

But a brave heart soars and sings I 
Tho' clouds draw round and storms betide, 

Within that heart hope springs. 
And here pure Faith all else beside, 
Around it twines and clings 1* 

** O, precious voice of the fireside ! 

Sweet spirit of calm and cheer! 
Tho* the wild wind roars o'er the pathless wastes, 

What matter, so thou art near? 
Thy voice ne'er stills tho* the years go on. 

When the patter of falling rain 
Drips from the eaves and trembles the leaves 

And rattles the window pane. 
Holy and sacred the voice of home, 

It steals to our hearts again." 

Beatrice Clayton. 



HOME. 



'' Love, and the Smiling Face of Her" 

Home is the holy of holies of a man's life. 
There he withdraws from all the world, and, 
shutting his door, is alone with those who are 
his own. It is the reservoir of his strength, the 
restorer of his energies, the resting place from 
his toil, the brooding place for his spirit, the in- 
spiration for all his activities and battles. 

Home is where love lives. Not where it 
boards, nor pays occasional visits, even long 
visits, nor even where it may be a sort of per- 
manent guest, with familiar access to certain 
rooms and cozy comers. But where it owns the 
front-door key, sits by the glow of a hearth- 
fire of its own kindling, and pervades the whole 
house with its presence. It may be a king's 
spacious, luxurious palace. It may be the poor 
man's narrow-walled cottage, or anywhere in be- 
tween these two extremes. 

The palace cannot make the home, nor yet mar 
it. The simplicity and sparencss of the cottage 

8i 



82 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

do not bring the home, and neither can they 
hinder nor disturb it. 

There may be present the evidences of wealth 
and culture and of the sort of refinement that 
these give, and even the higher refinement they 
can't give, and yet the place not be a home. And 
there may be the absence of all this, except that 
real refinement that love always breeds, and yet 
there be a home in the sweet, strong meaning 
of that word. 

The first home was in a garden. It was 
planned so. The freshness and fragrance of the 
garden filled the home. The wholesome sweet- 
ness of nature was the only air breathed. And 
the garden has never left the home. That first 
joining together has never been put asunder. 
Even in the city, where the blueness of the sky, 
the smile of the stars, and the freshness of real 
air, are almost forgotten, even there remnants 
of the garden still cling. Very raggedy rem- 
nants they are sometimes, scarcely-seen grass- 
spots upon which the foot is sternly forbidden 
to go, yet remnants of the original Eden plan. 
There is always a bit of Eden left, even in the 
city. 

Home things tangle and twine themselves 
close and clinging about the heart, until the 
tendrils are unable to unclasp their fingers. To 
the outside man a chair may be just a chair, one 
of a thousand; but to you it has a caressing 



Home. 83 

voice, that speaks to your heart of memories and 
faces and experiences woven inextricably into 
the fabric of your life. 

Home things to eat have a fine flavor all their 
own, that can't be imitated by any Parisian chef. 
Everybody who ever had a home, a real home 
with a garden, knows that a potato served in a 
hotel, even a fine hotel, has no such taste as 
the one your own hands have planted, and 
'^ worked '' and dug up, and that has been cooked 
and served by hands that love you and that you 
love. 

It is an exquisite picture, in its homely sim- 
plicity, and its heart-touches, that James Whit- 
comb Riley draws for us from the prayer of the 
London shopkeeper, and angler and author, 
Isaak Walton : 

" I crave, dear Lord, 
No boundless hoard 
Of gold and gear, 

Nor jewels fine, 

Nor lands, nor kine, 
Nor treasure heaps of anything — 

Let but a little hut be mine 
Where at the hearthstone I may hear 

The cricket sing, 

And have the shine 
Of one glad woman's eyes to make, 
For my poor sake, 

Our simple home a place divine — 
Just the wee cot — the cricket's chirr — 
Love, and the smiling face of her. 



84 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

" I pray not for 
Great riches, nor 

For vast estates, and castle halls — 
Give me to hear the bare footfalls 
Of children o'er 
An oaken floor. 
New-rinsed with sunshine, or bespread 
With but the tiny coverlet 
And pillow for the baby's head; 
And pray Thou, may 
The door stand open and the day 
Send ever in a gentle breeze 
With fragrance from the locust trees, 

And drowsy moan of doves, and blur 
Of robin chirps and drone of bees. 

With afterhushes of the stir 
Of intermingling sounds, and then 

The good wife and the smile of her. 
Filling the silences again — 
The cricket's call 

And the wee cot. 
Dear Lord of all. 
Deny me not! 

"I pray not that 
Men tremble at 

My power of place 
And lordly sway — 
I only pray for simple grace 
To look my neighbor in the face 

Full honestly from day to day — 
Yield me his horny palm to hold 
And I'll not pray 
For gold; 
The tanned face, garlanded with mirth, 
It hath the kingliest smile on earth — 



Home. 85 



The swart brow, diamonded with sweat, 
Hath never need of coronet; 
And so I reach, 

Dear Lord, to Thee, 
And do beseech 
Thou givest me 
The wee cot and the crickefs chirr. 
Love, and the glad sweet face of her 1 " 



The Birthplace of Institutions. 

All life is in debt to the home. The begin- 
nings of every honored institution have been in 
the home. Every valued form of activity may be 
traced to its source within these hallowed walls. 
Here the seed of every bit and kind of human 
organization has first sprung up into strong life. 

From the earliest day the home was the center 
of worship. The father was priest and minister 
as well as father. He stood for God in his 
household^ and led his family in their worship 
and religious observances. The church began 
here, using that word in its broadest meaning, 
for a group of people gathered for the worship 
of God. Among great multitudes the home is 
still the center of worship, whatever form the 
religious observance may take. The church of 
to-day might well be studying afresh the early 
home models in planning its service of worship. 

All the roots of state and civil government 



86 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

run down and back into the home. This is a 
highly centraUzed government, too. It has more 
paternalism than any national government to-day. 
Again the father, as head of the family, is the 
center of law and of authority. Ideally both 
father and mother together make the central 
authority, and it is interesting to observe how 
far that has always been and is true in prac- 
tical administration. The mother is even more 
than the father, playing the larger part in teach- 
ing the law of the home, and insisting upon 
obedience, and in tempering the administration 
of that law in the little realm of the home. 

It is intensely interesting to note that govern- 
ment, as it began in the home, and as it still finds 
its truest, strongest type there, is highly auto- 
cratic. There is no appeal from the decision 
of the head. But, mark keenly, that ideally, and 
in good measure practically, it is an autocracy 
of love. The autocrat is a father, with the 
best meaning that word may have. And this 
father-autocrat is under the sway of a friend, 
with the sweetest meaning that word may have ; 
and he is under the sway, too, of a mother, with 
the tender meaning that word ever has. 

And yet in this highly centralized autocracy 
representative government had its birth, too. 
The seeds of purest democracy are here. But 
it is a democracy blending with autocracy in a 
manner that would be an utter astonishment to 



Home. 87 

statesmen if suggested as a possible thing in 
civil government to-day. Governments might 
well study more closely the old home models 
whence they spring. The true home spirit must 
get into our civic institutions if they are to fulfill 
their mission, and to abide. 

The whole school scheme began in the home, 
from the primary grades up to the university 
post-graduate work. And no finer school work 
has ever been done than in the original home uni- 
versity. Its graduates have gone out into every 
activity of life, and brought honor upon their 
Alma Mater. It is co-educational in form, with 
all the advantages of the sexes mingling, each 
being helped by the distinctive traits of the 
other. But it is in the atmosphere of accepted 
authority, and of the unconscious reverence of 
childhood, and amid the natural restraints of 
surroundings such as can only be approximated 
outside of the home. 

There began the ideal schooling, with care- 
fully graduated courses^ gentle but firm disci- 
pline, and with the tender personal relation be- 
tween teacher and student that lies at the very 
root of the best character-building. Much of 
the very language of college life, about which 
so many tender memories cling, grew up out of 
the home. ''Alma mater/' the fostering, feed- 
ing mother, and ''alumnus/' one nursed and 
fostered, breath out all afresh the fragrance of 



88 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

the tenderest memories of early life. The school 
that can come nearest to reproducing the spirit 
of the early home-university will be strongest in 
character-building, the chief purpose of all 
school work. 

The broad and deep mental culture repre- 
sented by the library is a bit of the genius of 
true home life. The little collection of books 
on the home-made shelves, hard purchased from 
scanty funds, carefully selected, and jealously 
guarded, and eagerly pored over, was the 
foundation of all the great libraries. And many 
of the larger collections, worthily called libraries, 
have been, and still are, pretty much home af- 
fairs. The readily accessible public library is a 
comparatively recent addition to modem life. 

No finer library work was ever done than in 
countless numbers of these scanty home libraries 
with their few old classics. The work was in- 
tensive, by force of circumstances, rather than 
extensive or scattered. What little was there 
went in deep, and struck its roots into the vitals. 
The cheap newspaper and magazine had not yet 
come to make shallow reading and shallower 
thinking. For so many have not learned the 
secret of a wise reading of the invaluable news- 
paper and magazine. 

Foundations of great mental power and of 
great character were laid in the little corner 
library of the home, such as many, maybe most, 



Home. 89 

great libraries with all their wealth and their in- 
valuable service to men, are utter strangers to. 
The lean, lank Lincoln boy, lying prone in the 
light of his pitch-pine fire, conning over English 
Bible, and Shakespeare, and Bunyan, is typical 
of the best work of the narrow home collection ; 
and typical, too, of the genius of home, which 
makes for mental and moral strength and 
discipline. 

And the literary society, with its rare oppor- 
tunity for the helpful warming friction of con- 
genial minds, began in the evening family group ; 
and in the larger, yet small, group of spirits 
akin in their mind-hunger, gathering about the 
Hearth-fire. Some literary societies might be 
improved by a return to that hearth fire. 

The earliest hospital was in the home. And 
the true home atmosphere has never been im- 
proved upon, nor approached, in the splendidly 
equipped hospitals that dot the earth over, with 
their gracious skilled ministry of brain and hand. 
Nursing, which with the utmost that the wise 
physician can do, means so much more than his 
skill can bring, — ^nursing finds its finest adepts 
within home walls. 

With the best that recent science has taught 
at hand, and wisely used, here is the best of 
nurses' training schools. And, with all due re- 
gard for the hospital and sanitarium, they can't 
approach the psychological power of the atmos- 



90 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

phere of the well-regulated home in working 
cures. And the physicians are laying more and 
more stress on the psychological in doing cures. 
The mind can doctor the body better than any 
other. 

And, of course, the beginning of all manufac- 
turing and deft hand-working was in the home. 
The greatest manufacturing plants owe their ex- 
istence to the simple home beginnings. And 
in all corners of the earth the home still includes 
the humble workshop, with the skilled hand- 
worker. And the home factory has not been im- 
proved upon for Lneness of workmanship. Nor 
has it been approached for the symmetry of 
physical and mental development, and for the 
character-building that rightly belong to manual 
labor. 

The modern factory can make more money 
for the owners, but has lost in the genius 
that home put into its beginnings, though an 
earnest, belated effort is being made to get back. 
It's a poor home that has lost the spirit of the 
little old home workshop, and some remnant of 
the shop itself for its boys and girls. 

It may disturb some to remember that the be- 
ginnings of army and navy can be traced directly 
to the hearth-fire. Yet, of course, it is so. The 
strong father, with his sturdy sons, planning 
the protection of their home, either inland or 
down by the sea, from the enemy ; several such 



Home. 91 

groups, gathered in the home of the leader, to 
guard their little community against the com- 
mon danger — such was the beginning of all army 
and navy organization. 

How blessedly different history would have 
been if the evil spirit of restless ambition and ag- 
gression had never eaten its canker way into 
such simple sufficient organization. The home 
contains the genius of the only army and navy 
organization ever needed, with the only purpose 
ever permissible, the protection of home inter- 
ests. 

And it may be a bit startling, too, to recall 
that the modern social club was originally a 
home affair, though it would seem, in quite a 
few cases, to have become a prodigal. No so- 
cial gathering, or jplace of social resort or re- 
treat, can equal the old home circle, with a few 
choice friends in, for a bit of tea and a bite of 
bread, and the exchange of the small courtesies 
and warmths of life. The break-up of homes 
and of the home spirit, and the growth of the 
club, in some form or other, seem to have gone 
hand-in-hand. If the modern clubs, which have 
a place to fill in our highly organized city life, 
could retain more, — or would it better be said 
'^ some '' ? — of the old home atmosphere of sim- 
plicity and purity and high ideals, they would 
better fulfill their mission among the thousands 
of homeless city dwellers. 



92 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

The home still remains the center of the social 
exchanges and functions of modern life. This 
child has not gone away like the others. Yet 
one cannot help thinking it has played the 
prodigal quite a bit to the early simple home 
ideals. 

The first art gallery was in a home. And 
the home galleries still contain many of the 
choicest products of brush and chisel and needle. 
The natural yearning after the ideal as ex- 
pressed in picture, and stone, and cunningly 
woven or worked fabrics, is never wholly lost. 
What home is there, however humble, that has 
not its bit of idealized face or scene, even though 
it be only a cheap reprint ? The art gallery, 
and the pictured representation of life, are but 
mute expressions of the hunger of the human 
heart for the ideal in life. 

And that weird wizard of modern life, or- 
ganization, which plays the witch in its almost 
magical power and transformations, found its 
first expression in the home. The home was the 
earliest and simplest and yet most perfect form 
of organization. The very genius of the spirit 
of organization is found in its highest perfection 
in the typical home. Here is highly centralized 
authority, a natural scheme into which all activ- 
ity fits its adjusted parts, distinctive work for 
each, responsibility of each and all to the one 
head, and in and through all a passion of warm, 



Home. 93 

eager loyalty to the home and its head. It is 
probably no exaggeration to say that the world's 
life has never known such perfection of organi- 
zation, and such stupendous achievements of or- 
ganization, as in our day. And we do well to 
remind ourselves all anew that it all grew up out 
of the home. 



The Genius of Home. 



Surely the world owes a great debt to the 
home. Yet the true home spirit and ideals were 
never more in danger of being swept completely 
away. The only adequate way of paying up, in 
this case, will be by a restoration of the early 
home with its simple, pure, strong ideals. The 
home is not only the first member of the na- 
tional family historically, but is still first in im- 
portance. This first-born must still have the 
birth-right place and portion if the family is 
to prosper. All the roots of these things named 
still run down here for their sustenance. 

A weakened home means a weakened people. 
It should be keenly noted that nothing else, abso- 
lutely nothing else, can take its place. A weak- 
ened home means a weakened church. It puts 
a greater task upon the educational institutions ; 
and yet, however strong and able, these can never 
do the home's work. It means lowered stand- 
ards in business, and in political and in social 



94 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

life. Students of present-day conditions in 
church and national and business life would bet- 
ter dig their investigating spades a bit deeper 
down into the sub-soil. 

A father and mother living together with their 
children, tender in their love, pure in their lives, 
strong in their convictions, simple and orderly 
in their habits, do infinitely more than presidents 
and governors, legislators, educators and clergy- 
men can do in making a strong nation. And 
that is a '* more " that can be replaced by nothing 
else. True strength can come to a nation only 
as the genius of the home pervades the whole 
inner life of the people. 

The home nations are the most enduring na- 
tions. The secret of the most remarkable length 
of life of China as a nation must be found here. 
We Westerners may not think highly of their 
ideals. But the fact remains that where other 
nations have come, and shown great vitality, and 
done great deeds, and then vanished, leaving only 
ragged remnants behind, to mark the spot where 
once they lived, this nation of the Orient is hoary 
white with the years^ and seems as strong as 
ever in its mere power to defy the wasting hand 
of time. Nowhere has the family so strong a 
hold in the national life. Nowhere do its ties 
bind so tightly. It seems to us to be carried 
to such an extreme as to be oftentimes a hinder- 
ing instead of a help. But that need not keep 



Home. 95 

us from seeing that in the sacred guarding of the 
family unit Hes national stability. 

And, it should be keenly noted on the other 
hand, that the home can be true to its own spirit 
and genius only as it retains and brings out 
into full strength these early ideals. The simple 
altar of worship with its recognition of the 
Heavenly Father's hallowed and hallowing pres- 
ence, the fine reverence for authority, and the 
mental and moral training and discipline which 
enter so potently into character-building, — these 
belong to the very genius of home. Without 
them there may be an inhabited house, but not 
a home. 

The broader culture and thoughtful study of 
life's problems; the dignity of labor, with the 
training of brain and hand together; the co- 
operative principle practically applied in the do- 
ing of life's work, so invaluable in the training 
of boys and girls as well as with the mature; — 
these as truly belong to the home, and vastly 
enrich its living wealth, and immensely increase 
its power. And the spirit of devoted mutual 
loyalty to the home group, and of giving strength 
out for its protection from all intruders; the 
rest and help of social warmth and fellowship 
and inspiration; these should be jealously nur- 
tured and guarded that they may grow strong, 
and not be stolen away by the sneak thieves of 
modern life. 



g6 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

The Holy of Holies. 

But however much the home may have done 
in enriching the institutions and Hfe of society, 
and however great may be its importance to the 
nation, its deepest significance Hes in its persona] 
meaning. Its sweets and wealth, and finest 
flavor and fragrance, are not for the nation, but 
for those whose personal life centers there. The 
effects upon the nation are indispensably vital. 
Yet they seem really incidental when compared 
with the effect in the individual life. Of course, 
the two are inextricably intermingled, for the 
individual makes the nation. 

The home is the holy of holies of a man's life. 
There he may shut himself in from all the world. 
There he comes in from the cold and strength- 
sapping strife and work of the outer world. He 
warms himself at love's fires. He renews his 
strength in love's atmosphere. He rests both 
spirit and body in love's faith and confidences. 
It is his starting-point out on his errands in the 
world, and his returning and retiring place for 
the nourishing of his life afresh. 

It is of keen interest to note that, while in 
most languages the word for " home " means a 
place, or a group of places, or a village; in the 
Dutch of the Hollanders, sister language to our 
own, the word used has, in some of its forms, the 
meaning of *' private," '* secret." It penetrates 



Home. 97 

into the house after the purpose and power that 
are inside. It is suggestive to us Americans, 
who have gotten so much from brave Holland 
in national ideals and organization, that this little 
land of homes, with its home-loving queen her- 
self nursing her babe these days, should have so 
much of the inner finer meaning of home im- 
bedded in its language. And hoary-headed old 
Sanskrit^ mother to so many of our languages, 
has in its word for home the meaning of '' place 
of rest," '' security." 

The word home is commonly used merely for 
a place. The house in which a family lives is 
called a home. But we want to remember the 
finer meaning of the word, and to add to its 
fineness by the emphasis of our own life. It is 
true that home is a place. The place is es- 
sential to the home. But it is a sad loss when 
the thought of place tells all of the meaning the 
word may have to some. A house, with people 
living in it, who are kin to each by the accident 
of birth — that is all the word seems to mean 
sometimes. And there is a strong swirl of the 
wind in to-day's life that acts like suction 
upon the home, sucking out the sweet, rich 
heart, and leaving only the outer shell, the 
place. 

But home is more than a place. It is an ideal ; 
and more yet, an ideal being worked out, in vary- 
ing degree, into the real. It was surely more 



98 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

than a place to the little child of whom this story 
is told : 



" I found her on the corner, 

A maid of three short years; 
Her head a mass of tangled curls, 

Her blue eyes filled with tears. 
'Where do you live, my little maid? 

I fear youVe wandered far — * 
She looked at me and, sobbing, said, 

* I live with my Mama." 

*' I took her in my arms and tried 

To soothe her childish woe. 
*But where does Mama live?' I asked. 

'Perhaps the street you know?' 
She gazed at me — no sorrow now 

The childish face did mar — 
' Why, don't you know ? ' she wondering said, 

' She lives with my Papa ! ' 

"'Oh, little maid! Oh, little maid!' 

I cried in my despair. 
'Your Mama lives with your Papa, 

And they both live — pray, where ? ' 
She tossed the mass of tangled curls 

And laughed aloud with glee — 
' My Mama lives with my Papa, 

And they both live with me ! ' " * 

That home is an ideal, and a very sv^eet one, 
was unconsciously revealed by the little maid's 
artless replies. 

' M. N. S., in Little Folks* Magazine. 



Home. 99 

Home is an atmosphere that pervades the 
whole spirit of a man's life, even as the outer 
atmosphere fills his lungs, and affects his blood, 
and his whole physical life. Home is where love 
lives, and reigns, and trains. It is the outer 
abiding-place of the finest friendship. The mel- 
lowing, enriching, resting, inspiring influence of 
love is felt from cellar to garret, even as the 
fragrance of new-blown locust blossoms will fill 
a room. 



The Nursery of Full-grown Souls. 

Home means privacy. There a man may 
shut himself in, and shut the crowd out; and 
that is a great essential to the making of deep, 
strong life. There is a stubborn tendency in 
present-day life to rob us of privacy; to steal 
away the quiet corner where in silence one may 
sit and commune with his own spirit, and listen 
to the voice of God within his soul. There can 
be no strong life without privacy. 

" If chosen men could never be, 
In deep mid-silence open-browed to God, 
No greatness ever had been dreamed or done." 

Privacy is the schoolroom of character. In 
the crowd and street character must live, and 
be put to the test, and develop its strength, but 



loo Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

the solitude of the inner chamber is where it is 
made, and made deep. 

'' The nurse of full-grown souls is solitude." 
The home is the nursery of character ; not merely 
for the children, but for the mature as well. 
No man can be strong, and no woman can come 
into her full birthright of sweet potency, with- 
out that privacy for which home stands pe- 
culiarly. 

And home means rest. When one is tugging 
away, sore in muscle, or in brain^ or maybe 
in heart, his thought turns unbidden to the quit- 
ting hour, and the home spot where rest may 
come. And resting is one of the absolute es- 
sentials of strength, and of strong character. 
There is a good tiredness, which brings good 
sleep, and which leaves in sleep. But excessive 
fatigue is a subtle foe, to be earnestly fought. 
We should fight it for character's sake. Fatigue 
is a terrible demoralizer. Countless temptations 
are yielded to because the body is all tired out. 
Many a sadly blighted life turned the down-cor- 
ner at the point of bodily exhaustion. 

We need the home for rest. And the home 
should be kept sacred to its mission of rest. It 
is not simply the rest of quitting at six in the 
evening, and not needing to begin again until 
seven or eight the next morning; but the rest 
of readjustment of spirit, the rest of sweet har- 
mony. 



Home. loi 

"Rest is not quitting 
The busy career; 
Rest is the fitting 

Of self to its sphere. 

"'Tis the brook's motion, 
Clear without strife. 
Fleeing to ocean 
After its life. 

" Deeper devotion 

Nowhere hath knelt; 
Fuller emotion 

Heart never felt. 

"Tis loving and serving 
The highest and best! 
'Tis onward! Unswerving — 
And that is true rest."* 

And home means faith, sweet mutual confid- 
ing. It means a trust that never questions, even 
half-unconsciously in the inner secret of the 
heart, regarding anything. This is not leaving 
behind the thought of home being rest. It is 
simply emphasizing and intensifying it yet more. 
There is no rest equal to that of being with the 
one whom you trust absolutely, and who unques- 
tioningly trusts you. That is the secret of real 
rest, and of the new inspiration that rest 
brings. 

*John Sullivan Dwight. 



I02 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

" In love, if love be love, if love be ours, 
Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers; 
Un faith in aught is want of faith in all. 

" It is the rift within the lute 
That, by and by, will make the music mute, 
And, ever widening, slowly silence all : 

"The little rift within the lover's lute, 
Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit. 
That, rotting inward, slowly moulders all. 

" It is not worth the keeping : let it go ! 
But shall it? Answer, darling, answer No! 
And trust me not at all, or all in all." ^ 

It is in such a home that fine-grained strength 
grows up to the full. That word strength needs 
a frequent re-telling of its meaning. It means 
not simply power to do, though that is thought 
of more than anything else in speaking of 
strength. But there's a greater test, and a 
greater revealing, of strength than that. There 
is the greater strength that can patiently endure, 
and do it serenely. The strength of not-doing, 
and not-speaking, when that is the thing most 
needed, though all the tendency and temptation 
are to a spilling out at lip and hand, is infinitely 
more than the strength of action. 

It takes the greatest strength to speak quietly. 
It takes rarely disciplined strength to bring the 
softest music out of organ or piano. It is quite 
* Tennyson. 



Home. 103 

likely that, speaking offhand, one would say 
that the eagle is the most powerful of all flying 
birds. And yet a little thought and reading 
bring to mind the fact that, though actually so 
powerful, its relative strength is really inferior to 
that of the humming-bird. This smallest of 
birds can perform a feat of strength quite im- 
possible to the powerful eagle. It holds itself 
steadily poised in mid-air as it quietly sips its 
honey-food from the hanging flower. Its very 
calmness and steadiness and delicacy of action 
reveal the superbness of its strength. 

The strength that reveals itself most in gentle- 
ness and tenderness and keenly alert patience ; in 
subdued tone, and soft touch, and quiet step, is 
the real, strong strength that wins the hardest 
fight It is a native product of the home. And 
the true home is constantly growing it, and 
growing it into ever new depth and fineness. 

The Birth of a Home, 

The real genius of the home spirit, the love 
spirit, is shown in every new home-birth. The 
making of the home always has in it the element 
of sacrifice and of pain. Therein lies the secret 
of its astonishing vitality. It comes into being 
only by the transfusion of rich, ripe, human 
blood. Love is the corner-stone of the home; 
and that stone can be set securely in place only 



I04 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

in red mortar. The crisis of a human birth 
always means pain, a pain mingled with greatest 
joy and quite overborne by the joy, and yet a 
real, biting pain. 

The birth of a home means the same undercut- 
ting of secret pain in the midst of music and re- 
joicing. For two other homes give out of their 
life that this new home may come into its life. 
Some mother has parted with her son, that an- 
other woman may have him all to herself. She 
gave her own very life that life might come to 
him. He is a bit of her life, and a big bit of 
her heart. For long years she was the one 
woman of all the world to him. Now, it is a 
bit of his maturing life, in which his mother re- 
joices, and which is a crowning of her years of 
toil, that another woman comes to occupy the 
inner chamber of his heart where once she 
reigned as queen. 

And while she rejoices with great gladness 
over his joy, and over the new higher life await- 
ing him, there is the secret tear that will steal its 
way down her cheek. Yet the minor is the 
sweetest music. It has more of the heart in it. 
No music is perfect, or is true in its answering 
rhythm to the human heart that has no minor 
strain in its undertone. 

And yet that's only half the story. Some 
father has had the experience of having another 
man come in and take that first place in his 



Home. 105 

daughter's heart that he has had all her life. 
She had, time and again, taken his heart by 
storm all anew, as perchance he had seen the 
marvel of his own early love reproduced in her 
face and spirit. He has given the best of his 
life-strength through years and hard struggles, 
for her, and of the strength of his presence to 
her. He has been the one man among men to 
her through those growing years. And if he 
has done well his part as father, he has held 
that place through all those years. 

Now another quietly steps in past him into that 
one place. And he rejoices that it is so, for it 
spells out the perfecting of life's character and 
joys and mission for her. But the form of the 
man stepping in past him casts a shadow over 
his own path. Yet he knows it is well, and 
right. For there must needs be shade as well 
as sun to make a perfect day. Every home has 
its birth in thoughtful, sacrificial love. 

The Meaning of Love, 

And that same sacrificial love is the secret of 
making a home true; and of holding it true; 
and of bringing it back again if it have been 
playing the prodigal. Archbishop Trench's fine 
lines can be made as true in the home, as 
for the world he was thinking of, in penning 
them: 



io6 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

" I say to thee, do thou repeat, 

To the first man thou mayst meet, 
In highway, lane, or open street, 

That he and I and all men move 
Under a canopy of love 

As broad as God's blue heaven above." 

Four simple letters of our alphabet, 1-o-v-e, 
tell the one great secret of home making. But 
all the letters of all the alphabets can't begin 
to tell all the syllables and words and sentences 
and paragraphs and chapters and books and li- 
braries of the real thing of love itself. Love 
means more than loving ; that is, more than tender 
heart, and endearing word, and fond caress. If 
it be a sufficient telling of what God is to say 
that He is '' love/' then that word must mean 
far more than we have been reading out of it, 
even in our most thoughtful moods. It must 
mean purity and wisdom as well as the quickly- 
thought-of heart-meaning. 

That love is to take in all the " heart '' and 
'' soul " and " strength '' and " mind," as quoted 
to Jesus from Moses by the inquiring lawyer, 
suggests strongly that it sweeps in the whole na- 
ture of man. The act of love and the life of 
love must involve not merely the emotional 
powers, but the keen, wise discipline and use of 
the mental powers, the strength of the bodily 
powers, and the very life-principle itself. 



Home. 107 

Clearly love must mean purity for the loved one's 
sake. 

Jesus giving the strength of His thought to 
thinking through man's needs and disposition, 
and deciding that dying was the wisest way of 
winning him, — that was loving man with all His 
mind. Jesus suffering severest bodily pain on 
the Cross, — that was loving man with all His 
strength. Jesus coming down among men to 
live their life with them through the years, — 
that was loving man with all his soul or life. 
And the great heart-love was the secret spring 
back of all else. 

Love means all the powers of one's being 
disciplined, and devoted in all their keenness and 
strength and maturity, to the one loved, and that, 
too, through all the long years until the web of 
life is fully woven. This is God's secret of life. 
And this is the one secret of the true home. 
Such love shows itself, not only in the gripping, 
driving purpose, but in a thousand little ways It 
will be felt in all the planning, in money af- 
fairs, in the punctual fitting into the home 
schedule, in thoughtfulness about little things, 
in word, and act, and look, and very presence. 

" True love is but a humble, low born thing 
And hath its food served up in earthenware; 
It IS a thing to walk with, hand in hand, 
Through the every day ness of this work-day world, 



io8 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

A love that gives and takes, 

Not with flaw-seeking eyes like needle points, 

But, loving kindh% ever looks them down. 

A love that shall be new and fresh each hour." ^ 

The critical spirit won't be able to breath com- 
fortably in that atmosphere. Love sees. It 
isn't blind. But it thinks, too, and remembers 
that life is a school, and that a patient word, and 
a warm hand help much when a tugging load is 
wearing the spirit sore, and maybe disturbing 
the control of the tongue a trifle. 

** So many little faults we find : 
We see them; for not blind is love. 
We see them, but if you and I 

Perhaps remember them in some bye and bye, 

They will not be faults then, grave faults, for you 
and me. 

But just, odd ways ; 

Mistakes, or, even less, 

Remembrances to bless. 
Days change so many things, yes hours ; 

We see so differently in suns and showers; 
Mistaken words to-night, 

May be so cherished by to-morrow's light. 
We may be patient, for we know 

There's such a little way to go." 

The Real Test. 



The home is the impress of the character of 
those living there. Or, it could be put better 
* James Russell Lowell. 



Home. 109 

by saying, the impress of the one in the home 
who dominates it. You press your thumb firmly 
down on a lump of moist clay, and as you lift 
it away, the clay contains a faithful imprint of 
the thumb; both the whole face of the thumb, 
and every line are plainly indented there. Just so 
the home is the impress of those living there ; and 
particularly of the one who is the dominant char- 
acter there. Usually that is the mother. More 
rarely it is the father, who, maybe half-uncon- 
sciously, dominates the mother, and through her 
the home. Sometimes it is an older daughter; 
more rarely a son; sometimes some other one. 

It is an impression given unconsciously. It is 
given by what we are The way to make a home 
what it should be is, first of all, for the home- 
maker to be that in himself. If a home is to be 
pure in its life, strong in its purpose, orderly in 
its arrangement, rhythmic in its habit, restful in 
its spirit, inspiring in its uplift, the dominating 
personality of the home must be all of that in 
himself. The home can never be more than 
its maker; and it never will be less. You don't 
really know a man or woman until you know 
his home, for it is the impress of him. What 
it is, he is. He must be brought to this standard 
to have his real character known. 

The real test of a man's life is his home life. 
It is not in what his lips say, nor in what his 
church profession may be, but in what he is, and 



no Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

in what he is in the one place where his life 
comes out most plainly, the home. If there be 
a seamy side, it will surely stick uglily out here. 
If there be a sweet masterful keeping of 
the seams out of existence, so far as the eyes can 
see, it will be felt here. Character is not re- 
vealed best by public service, nor church activ- 
ities, nor the righting of public evils, invaluable 
as all of this is. The real man may be found 
only at home. You don't know a man's char- 
acter until you know his home life. 

A Scottish missionary, home on furlough from 
her work in India, told this story. She had been 
teaching a group of children one day, telling 
them the story of Jesus, bringing out, bit by bit, 
incidents showing His character. As she was 
talking one child, listening intently, grew excited^ 
and then more excited. At last she was unable 
to restrain herself, and blurted eagerly out: "I 
know him ; he lives near us'' 

Was there ever such praise of a human? 
Have any of us ever been taken or mistaken for 
Jesus? When the homefolks begin to wonder 
in their secret hearts if it can possibly be that 
Jesus is back, living in you, in disguise, the 
sweetest victory of His grace will be told. 

The Nazareth Home. 



And, if, maybe, some kind matter-of-fact friend 



Home. Ill 

thinks all this sort of talk sounds very nice, but 
is idealizing home clear out of all practical reach 
— you listen to this, and listen with your heart: 
there was a Nazareth home! There was a 
Jesus home in little hilly Nazareth. 

Nazareth has not had the place in the heart of 
the Church that rightly belongs to it. Bethle- 
hem, the place of His birth, has been immortal- 
ized in song and speech and art, and none too 
much. Galilee's hills and plains and blue lake 
have loomed up large as we follow Jesus' tire- 
less work among the crowds. The Jordan, and 
Judea, and Jerusalem, play a big part in our 
thought of that incessant going about doing 
good. The Transfiguration Mount, and Geth- 
semane's olive grove just over the Creek of the 
Cedars, have figured in big, too. 

To the great crowd in every generation and 
clime. Calvary has overtopped every other hill, 
and stands out tallest of all. But the little hill 
village of Nazareth has played but a very humble 
part. Yet Nazareth stands peculiarly for Jesus' 
everyday life, His home life, lived amid common- 
place circumstances for nearly the whole of his 
years. 

Jesus lived what He taught, and lived it first, 
and lived it more. That is to say, there was al- 
ways more that He had lived than He taught. 
His teaching was sublime. It has awakened the 
admiration of believer and skeptic alike. Its 



112 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

freshness never fails. But He had woven into 
the fabric of actual life far more of the truth He 
was speaking than could possibly get out of His 
lips. And this doesn't mean those three public 
years merely; it means rather the far longer 
home life in Nazareth that lay behind and back 
of those few public years; and which were now 
incarnated in His person. While His lips were 
speaking that life was speaking yet more. His 
pure quiet life in Nazareth was the greatest fact 
in His whole great career. It was this life that 
gave significance to His death. 

Nazareth stands for the home life. It contains 
the greater part of His great career. By far the 
greater number of years was spent here. Here 
were more praying for others and over the life 
plan, more communing with the Father, more 
battling with temptation, and narrow prejudice, 
and ignorance, than in the few years of public 
service. Here were more purity of Hfe, and 
steadiness of purpose, more wisdom in action 
and patience in touch with others and with the 
knotty little problems of daily life, more of all 
this being lived than could ever find outlet at 
His lips. 

Nazareth stands for that intensely human life 
of Jesus lived in dependence upon God's grace 
exactly as other men must live. It was lived 
in a simple home that would seem very narrow 
and meager in its appointments and conveniences 



Home. 113 

to most of us. He was one of a large family 
living in a small house, with the touch of elbows 
very close, and with all the possible, small, half- 
good-natured frictions that such close, almost 
crowded, touch is apt to give rise to. 

He worked with His hands and bodily strength 
most of the waking hours, doing carpentering 
jobs for the small trade of the village, dealing 
with exacting, whimsical customers, as well as 
those more easily suited. 

He was a son to His mother, an eldest son, 
too, and maybe, rather likely, of a widowed 
mother, who leaned upon her first-born in piecing 
out the small funds, and in the ceaseless care of 
the younger children. He was a brother to His 
brothers and sisters, a real brother, the big 
brother of the little group. He was a neighbor 
to His fellow villagers, and a fellow laborer 
with the other craftsmen. In the midst of the lit- 
tle but very real and pressing problems of home, 
the small talk and interests of the village life. 
He grew up, a perfect bit of His surroundings, 
and lived during His matured years. 

And who can doubt the simplicity and warmth 
and practicality and unfailingness of His love 
as it was lived in that great Nazareth life. We 
will never know the full meaning of Jesus' word 
" pure," and of His word " love,'' and of all His 
teaching, until we know His Nazareth life. The 
more we can think into what it really was, the 



1 14 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

better can we grasp the meaning of His public 
utterances. Nazareth is the double underscor- 
ing; in red under every sentence He spoke. 

Those three years and odd, of public life all 
grew up out of this Nazareth home life. They 
are the top of the hill ; Nazareth is the base and 
bulk; Calvary the tip-top. Here every victory 
had already been won. The public life was built 
upon the home life. Under the ministering to 
crowds, healing the sick, raising the dead, and 
patient teaching of the multitudes, lay the great 
strong home life in its purity. Calvary was 
built upon Nazareth. 

Jesus was, before He did, and before He died. 
He lived what He taught, and lived it before He 
taught it, and lived it far more than He could 
teach it. The greatness of His sacrifice for sin 
on Calvary lay in the matchless purity, the 
rugged strength and trueness to ideals of His 
home life. It was the quality of the life poured 
out so freely on Calvary that gives the wondrous 
meaning to His death. 

The ideal home life, bathed in the fine ether 
of love, is a real life. It has been lived. Jesus 
lived it. Others have in His strength. We 
can; and — please God — we will. 



THE FINEST FRIENDSHIP'S FINEST 

FRUIT: IN THE INNERMOST 

HOLY OF HOLIES. 



The Heart Mood. 

*' The Place Whereon Thou Standest is Holy 

Ground/' 
Fellow-workers with God. 
" More of Reverence.'^ 



"Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
But more of reverence in us dwell; 
That mind and soul according well. 
May make one music as before, 

"But vaster. We are fools and slight; 

We mock thee when we do not fear." 

Tennyson, 



THE FINEST FRIENDSHIP'S 
FINEST FRUIT. 



The Heart Mood. 

Have you noticed how much of the meaning 
of a spoken word depends upon the tone of the 
voice that speaks it? And upon the expression 
of the face as it is spoken? and especially upon 
the Hght in the eye? and upon the expression 
on the face of the spirit looking at you out of 
the eye? 

You read the word " love " on a printed page, 
and it carries a certain meaning to your mind, 
depending entirely on what your personal con- 
tacts with others have made it mean. But one 
day you are talking with someone, whose life 
seems deeper and fuller of meaning to you, than 
you have been able to grasp or fathom so far. 
And in the conversation he repeats that word 
'* love " in one of his remarks. And you are 
caught at once with how he says it. There is a 
hallowed touch of awe in his tone, as though he 
felt a something in the word that stilled and 
thralled his spirit. There is a caressing linger- 

117 



ii8 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

ing of the lip over the word, as though reluctant 
to part with it. 

You look into his face and there's a light there, 
a sort of subdued radiance, as if something 
within, a bit of the thing he is talking about, you 
think perhaps, is shining out through his face 
upon you. There is a new subtly subdued fire- 
light in his eye. Yet you can only see it partly, 
for his eyelids, those window-shades of the soul, 
are partly dropped or drooped, as though the 
wondrous vision within of what that spoken 
word means, and the glow within that its pres- 
ence gives, must be shielded from the unreverent 
gaze of the thoughtless not-understanding world. 

And yet the word is spoken, and the eyes let 
out something of the glow-light, and the face 
unconsciously reflects its presence. Simply be- 
cause such a thing as love can't be kept in, nor 
concealed. He speaks the word cautiously, be- 
cause of the world's dull ears to its meaning. 
And yet he speaks it gladly and eagerly to you, 
his friend or acquaintance, that you may know 
something of what he knows. 

Have you ever talked with any one like that? 
And did not the words so spoken have a newness 
and wealth of meaning that neither dictionary 
nor life had ever brought to you? 

Do you know, that must have been the way 
Jesus talked. Is it any wonder men hung on his 
words. His whole face. His whole heart and 



Finest Friendship's Finest Fruit. 119 

being were telling new uncommon meanings, 
while his lips spoke the words in common use. 
And have you noticed that that is something of 
the way those persons talk who have been off 
alone with Jesus a good bit? They never can 
get from under the spell of His presence, and 
of the new meanings He gives to words. 
Though all the time they are unconscious of how 
far that spell upon themselves is affecting their 
touch upon others. 

It must have been an experience like that that 
rugged old Elijah had. He had been dealing 
with thunder-storms, and blasphemous idolators, 
and an iniquitous king until his eyes flashed 
lightning, and his earnest loyalty to Jehovah 
made his voice into high-keyed, shrill, startling 
thunder peals and tones. And unconsciously he 
was thinking of the God he was championing 
so valiantly as something like that, too. 

The message of the desert cave, forty days 
later, wasn't a message of words so much, if at 
all, but a message of a presence. It is not said 
that the *^ still small voice " spoke words. Just 
an exquisite sound of gentle stillness came, but it 
told him more of the meaning of " God/' and of 
the great tender heart of love that that word 
" God " stands for, than he had ever known be- 
fore. 

There are certain words and certain things, 
that should always be spoken of in just that way, 



I20 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

and never in any other. You know how there 
are certain rare experiences of your Hfe that 
you simply cannot tell, except to the very few, 
maybe to only one or two of whose sympathy 
and understanding you feel sure. And you can't 
tell them even to these friends at just any time. 
There must be the time when their mood is 
peculiarly sympathetic. There must be a quiet 
corner, and you yourself in that peculiar heart- 
mood that allows speech of such things to come, 
and when the voice and eye and very presence 
come under the spell of that mood. 

^^ The Place Whereon Thou Standest is Holy 
Ground," 



Now, really the meaning, the great heart 
meaning, of some of the words we are using 
rather freely in these quiet talks together, can 
be gotten only in that way. The words '' ideals,'' 
and " friendship," and " love," and *' home " 
need a life that embodies them, and a face that 
unconsciously reflects that life, and a tone of 
voice, and a mood under the thrall of such a life, 
before their real meaning can come. 

And the meaning of the things we are to speak 
together of now, in this particular talk, will come 
in their fineness and depth, and yet in their 
simplicity, only as you, who are listening so 
kindly, will bring to them something of, yes. 



Finest Friendship's Finest Fruit. 121 

much of, the sympathetic mood of those listening 
to most hallowed things, in a quiet corner, where 
only heart-tones are used. 

We have been coming in, step by step, until 
we have now reached the innermost holy of 
holies of these quiet talks on home ideals. The 
home is the holy of holies of the world's life, 
and of a man's personal life. The life-friend- 
ship is the holy of holies of the home. Now we 
bare our heads all anew, and bow our heads low, 
as with hushed breath and reverent eye and ear 
we enter the holy of holies of the life-friendship. 

" Ideals " conceived, and believed in, and then 
woven patiently into the fabric of life, will lead 
surely into the one great life " friendship " that 
God plans for us. That friendship builds a 
** home " in which to abide. Into that home 
others may come only by invitation; and only 
those are asked to come who are sympathetic, 
and who help us, and whom we may help. 

Now we are entering that home, built so care- 
fully by friendship's hands; and we are to talk 
and to taste of its treasured sweets, and to drink 
great draughts of its strength. We have talked 
quite a bit about love. Now we want to talk 
about it a bit more. 

Love is creative. It has creative power. It 
is at its best, and is doing its finest work, and is 
truest to its best self, when it is creating. It 
longs to create. It yearns to bring into being 



122 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

one upon whom it may bestow the ecstasy of 
living, one with whom it may have full fellow- 
ship, and who will delight in having fellowship 
with his creator. That means one like itself, for, 
of course, there can be fellowship only wherein 
there is likeness. That likeness must be full, if 
the fellowship, and the enjoyment both of creator 
and created, are to be full, too. This is the very 
life of love in its freest, highest expression. 

This is the first great picture of God that 
looks out into our faces, as we open those rare 
old first Genesis pages. God is love. That 
word '' love '' is written over the heavens ; and 
over the whole life of the race, tangled up as 
the life threads do get. It is the one word writ- 
ten under the whole of this simple creation story. 
God created. He had to, for He is love. The 
very words for God, so familiar, '' Father,'* 
'' Son," '' Spirit,'' tell of the creative love of 
God, back in untimed, uncalendared eternity. 

He longed for a being like Himself, upon 
whom He could lavish His love, and whose love 
would be as sweet incense to Himself. The 
man was to be a bit of His own very self in 
powers, in character, and in the right to choose. 
He was to be as really an autocrat in the realm 
of his will, as God is in His. With deepest rev- 
erence it can be said, God couldn't help creating 
man, and creating such a man as He did. It is 
the love-instinct, the God-instinct, to create. 



Finest Friendship's Finest Fruit. 123 

And this very instinct to create, is a bit of the 
likeness of God in which we men were made. 
When Grod said, ** Let us make man in our 
image," He was obeying the same love-instinct, 
the same parental-instinct, that He put into us. 



Fellow-workers with God. 



God meant that it should be just as true to 
say, " Man is love," as to say, " God is love." 
And some day when all of His great love has 
w^orked out to the full, it will be said. In the 
deeper instincts of our being, apart from the in- 
fluence of sin, it is true that man is love. It is 
true because he is like God. And our inner con- 
sciousness, as we come nearest to God in touch 
and life, tells us that man is love. 

Indeed, he is a man only as he is love. Any- 
thing else is a dropping to the level where that 
horrid foreign thing, sin, has come in to pervert, 
and stain, and lead us away from ourselves. The 
love-instinct to create is inbred in man. It un- 
derlies the whole life of our race. It is never 
lost. Indeed, it seems the strongest of all in- 
stincts in the race, wherever found, under all 
conditions. 

God and man were intended to live and work 
together just as the sun and the rosebush do. 

The sun draws out the new life of the bush in 



124 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

the spring, gathers up moisture, and holds it in 
the opening clouds, and sends it down in dew 
and rain. And the rose answers with its great 
fresh green, and richest bloom, and sweetest 
perfume. Its glad "thank you" is breathed 
fragrantly out the whole live-long day. That's 
just the way man and God are to live together in 
all life. 



More of Reverence/' 



Of course, there are temptations here. Where 
are they not? Temptation always follows the 
natural path of life. There is nothing wrong in 
itself; but anything and everything may be- 
come terribly wrong. The sin is in the wrong 
motive or purpose underneath; or it is in the 
excess or exaggeration. And nowhere has temp- 
tation made stronger, subtler, more persistent 
raids upon the human life than in these holy 
things. The very ignorance that has been al- 
lowed to shroud this whole matter has led many 
earnest Christian people into grave wrong here. 
Ignorance always means thoughtlessness. It 
leads often into the doing of what is bitterly re- 
gretted in after years. 

Yet if there should be knowledge, and thought- 
fulness, and self-control anywhere, or in any- 
thing, surely it should be here in life's holiest, 



Finest Friendship's Finest Fruit. 125 

most potent work. Our unborn children, tc be 
made in our likeness, as well in God's, plead 
mutely with us for full knowledge, and thought- 
fulness, and self-mastery here, for their sakes. 

The very warmth of the love that binds two 
such hearts together, the tenderness of the love 
for the personality, the body, in which resides 
the great spirit loved, needs guarding. Love 
longs for the caress. The touch of hand with 
hand seems to bring the inner spirits into closer 
communion. The touching of lip to lip will tingle 
the whole being with a thrill, as though spirit 
were answering spirit in rapturous joy. 

These very contacts, and the intimacy of the 
private life, the closeness of contact of two lives 
together as one, are avenues to be guarded with 
holy prayer and watchful care. For there is no 
door into a man's life whose knob is free from 
the touch of temptation's cunning hand. 

Power of itself always awes. A hushing 
sense creeps into one's spirit at the sight of some 
great display of power. Niagara stills the spirit 
with the greatness of its power, and makes the 
reverent observer think of God. A great en- 
gine, with its finely balanced and adjusted 
mechanism, never ceases to be cause for ad- 
miration. 

An audience will sit spellbound under the 
touch of the skilled magician, or the word of 
the trained master of speech. The thoughtful 



126 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

physician looks with awe, ever increasing and 
stiUing his inner being, as he watches the mar- 
velous working of that divine bit of machinery, 
the human body. 

It is commonly said that medical students lose 
much of their sense of reverence for the human 
body, through their constant study of it, with 
eye, and hand, and knife. He is a rare man who 
retains an ever-deepening reverence for the won- 
ders of the human body as he goes through his 
course of medical study. 

It is a bit of the discipline of life to which 
a man should resolutely set himself, to retain, 
and cultivate, and refine that sense of reverence 
in the presence of power however familiar it 
may become. Every bush of our common life is 
aflame with the holy fire of God's presence. Yet 
the taking off of shoes seems all too rare. 

The powers of the human body are marvel- 
ous, wholly beyond words to begin to tell. Here 
is a laboratory nothing short of divine in its 
powers of reproduction. It is divine in its 
origin, in the partnership of God's own touch 
in the holy service, and in the great results that 
so unfailingly come. Yet it needs a stern pur- 
pose, persistently clung to, to have a growing 
reverence for one's own body. 

A man should set himself, with a heart- 
devotion, to cultivating an ever-growing rever- 
ence for the precious body intrusted to his holy 



Finest Friendship's Finest Fruit. 127 

care by her who has given her life into his 
keeping. 

Knowledge will grow from more to yet more. 
But it takes a stiff purpose, and daily touch with 
God, and a pure habit of life, to have more of 
reverence dwelling in us, so that mind and soul 
and body too, according well, may make one 
music, and sweeter music too. 

"Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
But more of reverence in us dwell; 
That mind and soul according well, ^ 

May make one music as before, 
But vaster.'' ^ 

^ Tennyson. 



FATHER-SMOTHER: GOD'S FEL- 
LOW-CREATORS. 



^A Mothering Father. 

The Greatest Word. 

A Fathering God, 

Learning to Father. 

Father Language, 

The Finest School Work. 

Fatherhood. 

A Window into Fatherhood. 

The Superlative Degree of Woman. 

The Symphony of Motherhood. 

Teaching Life's Language to Baby Lips. 

In Search of a Mother. 

The Highest Union. 



" Mary, when that little child 

Lay upon your heart at rest, 
Did the thorns, Maid-mother, mild, 
Pierce your breast? 

" Mary, when that little child 

Softly kissed your cheek benign, 
Did you know, O Mary mild, 
Judas' sign? 

" Mary, when that little child 

Cooed and prattled at your knee, 
Did you see with heart-beat wild, 
Calvary?" 

Rose Trumbull, 



FATHER— MOTHER. 



A Mothering Father. 

What is the holiest, the dearest word in our 
tongue ? You think a while, and Hkely you will 
answer ''love/' Yes, but love is a sentiment; 
it is an impersonal word. You never know love 
except as you know someone loving another. 
What personal word embodies this word " love '' 
most and best? And most hearts, the world 
around, will answer " mother." And as a sen- 
timent embodied in a person is always more and 
higher than the sentiment itself, " mother '' is 
commonly reckoned the holiest and dearest word 
in our tongue. 

That is to say, it is so far as our experience 
goes. And yet there is another answer that is 
true, too. Ideally there is a word, holier and 
higher and deeper in its significance, and that 
was meant to be sweeter than '' mother." That 
is the word " father." It is not so in man's 
common experience. That is true. But it is in 
the thought of God, and in the plan He meant 
us to fit our lives into. 

131 



132 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

For '' father '' includes all that "mother '' does, 
and something more. It is not actually so with 
most people. But originally it was, and ideally, 
in God's plan, it still is. Sometimes it is so 
actually. Sometimes it stands on a level with 
" mother ; '' but commonly it falls behind. That 
the actual does not measure up to the ideal here, 
tells how much more woman has filled up the 
measure of God's plan than man, and how far 
man has fallen behind. 

Father means mother, too. It doesn't mean 
it in common use. We think of *' father " as 
being masculine; and mother as feminine. The 
one stands distinctively for the strength traits, 
and the other for the love traits. Though as 
we think into that distinction we know that it 
isn't really a very sharp one. For the two 
meanings cross over the line between them. We 
can call to mind fathers who have shown a good 
bit of skill in mothering, too, when the need 
called for it. 

A minister was preaching to his home congre- 
gation on Sabbath morning. His son of five 
years sat in the minister's family pew, with 
others there. The strain of life had been too 
much for the mother's strength; the tether of 
life had worn thin, and raveled out, and then 
parted, and she had slipped away. It was said, 
in an undertone, among the families of the 
church, that the father of the boy, broken-hearted 



Father — Mother. 133 

over his loss, ministered with his own hands to 
the Httle fellow's needs, doing what a mother's 
hands commonly do. But he went quietly on 
his way in his church ministrations, seeking to 
hide his grief. 

He was preaching as usual this Sabbath morn- 
ing, and in his sermon spoke of a mother's care, 
and said, " Who can take the place of a mother? " 
His little son, listening intently, spoke out, with 
the unconscious artlessness of a child, and with 
the slow speech and the thin treble of childish 
lips, that could be distinctly heard in the quiet of 
the church, he said, '* I think a father does very 
well." A sudden hush cast its soft spell over 
the church, as the father swallowed something 
in his throat, and with glistening eyes smiled 
bravely down into his little son's face, and then 
went quietly on with his sermon. All uncon- 
sciously the boy was bearing tribute to the real 
fatherliness of the father who was mothering 
his motherless son. But in actual experience 
this is very rare. 

We can more easily think of mothers who 
have been fine fatherers, too, in the absence of 
the father, and the results of their work have 
not seemed to show any lack of " strength '* 
traits, either. 

That distinction between " father " and 
** mother " is an old one. It reveals itself in 
the language used long ago in the old Book. 



134 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

Moses said to Israel in the Moab Plains, "Thy 
God bare (or carried) thee as a man doth bear 
(or carry) his son, in all the way ye went, until 
ye came to this place/' ^ Here is the common 
thought of a father's distinctive trait of strength. 
** As one whom his mother comforteth," ^ brings 
out the tender heart-meaning we usually asso- 
ciate with the word " mother/' 

Yet even here the meanings cross over the 
line between, and help to rub it out as they 
cross. For " as a father pitieth his children " ^ 
is a putting of the distinctive mother meaning, 
the love meaning, into '' father/' Pity is love 
moved by weakness and need. On the other 
side, after a great victory in Israel, the woman 
leader sang 

" The rulers ceased in Israel, they ceased, 
Until that I, Deborah, arose, 
That I arose a mother in Israel." 

Here was not simply a woman, but a mother 
acting the part of strength and of leadership, 
because there was no father, with a father's dis- 
tinctive traits strong enough to make him a 
father to his nation. The meanings of the two 
words constantly blend. 

We are apt to think at once that *' father " 

* Deuteronomy i:3i. 'Psalms ciii:i3. 

* Isaiah lxvi:i3. * Judges v 7. 



Father— Mother. 135 

can't mean " mother/' too, because in our ex- 
perience it hasn't been so, as a rule. Or, at 
least, the other commoner thought stands out so 
strongly that we don't think into how far this 
other can be true. Yet '' father " means not 
only strength as we are apt to think of strength, 
but as strength really is ideally. Strength in- 
cludes love, and love at its best of being tender 
and gentle. And " mother " means " father," 
too. For love is strong. Its strength to rally 
its powers and do man's work is marvelous. 
There are probably many more mothers who 
have been good fathers too, than there are fa- 
thers who have also been mothers. 

Yet a father can be a mother, even though it 
IS so exceptional. And that mothers have been 
fathers less exceptionally brings out the fine fact 
that the two words blend in their meaning. The 
words mark a very real difference between the 
two, and yet it is a difference that is meant to 
be a disappearing one in real meaning, even 
while the distinctive traits of each remain. For 
fathers were meant to take on, and reveal, more 
and more, the mother's traits of love. And 
mothers were meant more and more to grow 
in the father traits of strength. Contact was 
meant to grow a likeness. 

It is not that the distinctive traits of each dis- 
appear, but that each takes on the distinctive 
traits of the other, in addition to his own. The 



136 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

father living with the mother in the constant 
touch of life should grow in strength as a 
father, and yet he should be absorbing into his 
make-up the fineness and gentleness and tender 
touch of the mother, too. And she cannot be 
less a mother, seeing she has the heart she has, 
but she can absorb into her finer being, though 
all unconsciously, more of the good independ- 
ence and self-reliance^ and leadership of him 
who is by her side. 

Father means mother, too. And mother means 
father, not in the mere words themselves, nor 
in our common use of them, but in the traits 
of character for which each was meant to stand 
by Him who taught us to talk. 



The Greatest Word, 



The word " father " is the strongest word in 
our language. It may not be the word most 
loved. Probably no word is more loved, or so 
much, as the word " mother." Yet that that is 
so is immensely suggestive. It suggests how 
much woman has made her distinctive word 
mean. But it suggests^ too, that men have not 
put into the word " father '' the meaning that 
belongs to it. There have been, and are, count- 
less numbers of fathers who have been real 
fathers, until that word has meant fully as much 



Father — Mother. 137 

to their children as the word " mother," and has 
been loved just as dearly. Yet the common ex- 
perience of the race seems to make it a less 
tender word, less endearingly and lingeringly 
spoken. And in so far as that is true it tells the 
story of how far man has not lived up to the 
meaning of the great word. 

It would be saying the thing more fully to say 
it this way : with God " father '' means 
'' mother," too. And if it be so with God, it 
should be so with man. For God's meaning is 
the true one. So far as " mother " means more 
to any child than '' father," by so much is spelled 
out the failure of some man to live the real 
meaning of " father " out in his daily contact 
with his children. By so much as '' mother/' 
taken broadly among the thousands who use it, 
means more in the general thought of it, by so 
far is told woman's greater faithfulness to the 
highest holiest task of life, committed not to one 
pair of hands, but to two. When " father " 
means to a child's heart as much as " mother," 
there is a man who has yielded to the sway of 
the mother spirit, and been true to the great 
simple plan of God. 

But that word " father " is the strongest word 
in our language. That is to say, it has more 
meaning than any other. It is one of the granite 
words, the chief one of them. At first flush you 
may think that there are at least two other words 



138 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

that mean more, that are stronger in what they 
stand for, either one or the other according to 
your experience or maybe according to your 
mood. The word " will " has been called the 
strongest of all in the thing it stands for. The 
will is the imperial bit of us. It is the choosing, 
deciding part, upon which all else depends. The 
will is the man. It is essentially the God-image 
within us. 

And then it has been felt and said that " love '' 
is the strongest, in that it stands for that which 
dominates life most, by all odds. Yet these 
things all agree. For love is of the will, else it 
could never sway the heart, and sweep all life 
as it does. And the will in man, unhurt by sin, 
as made by God, is an interchangeable word with 
love. With God to will is to love. And it is so 
with us men as we allow God's gracious Spirit 
to sweep our lives. 

And both words are included in that great 
word '* father." '' Father '' means love. It 
means love at the strongest and ifinest that love 
ever reaches. " Father '' means a will deciding 
upon a choice. A man rises up into being a 
father only as he yields to the sway of love, 
and chooses to imprint the divine-human image 
upon a new soul, and to keep it there sweet and 
fresh and clear. The strongest word is 
'* father." It includes these others in their full 
meanings. It gets its meaning from God, and 



Father— Mother. ^39 

keeps its meaning with men when they are true 
to the original plan. 

" Father " is the most inclusive word. It has 
already been said that it includes " mother." It 
also includes king or ruler. It includes teacher, 
with all of instruction and fine discipline, and 
personal influence and character-building that 
that great word itself includes. It includes or- 
ganizer and manager ; and coming last to the 
highest it includes friend. And, more than in- 
cluding, it gives a fullness of meaning to these 
words that otherwise would be missing. The 
word *' father " is the father of these other 
words. It gave birth to them, and it gives pres- 
ent life to them. These other words must go to 
school to this word " father " before they can 
rise up into fullness of life in their own right. 

A Fathering God. 

Why is God called a father? Is it simply a 
using of a word and a relationship familiar to 
us so as to convey some idea of what God is 
like? He is called a Shepherd. Yet He is not 
a shepherd, and we are not sheep; though 
that word of David's tells us with wondrous 
tenderness and realness what sort of a god God 
is. Is He a father? Or, does He simply mean 
to teach us that He loves and cares for us as a 
father does for his children. 



140 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

Is the word " father " one that God takes up 
out of our common life ? Or is it one that comes 
down into our life out of the life of God ? Is He 
a father because we are fathers, by an accom- 
modation of a human word? Or, are we fathers 
because He is a father, and has transferred 
fatherhood down from Himself to us by direct 
descent ? Which ? 

It gives great tenderness to the meaning of the 
word both in using it for God, and in using it 
among ourselves, to get at the real answer. And 
the answer is gotten simply by noticing what 
'' father " means ; that is, what a father is. A 
father is one who, because of love, chooses to 
give of himself, of his own life, that there may 
be another one, made in his own image, with 
whom he may have fellowship in spirit, and 
partnership in service. 

And whatever some of our scholarly friends 
may do with the simple Genesis story of crea- 
tion, it is impossible to get away from this, that 
its direct purpose was to let us know that God 
really fathered man. He was moved by love. 
He chose to have us made. He gave of His own 
life that we might come into life; and yet more, 
that we might come into His own sort of life, 
life like His, and that we should be in His own 
likeness in our life. 

And He has been acting the father part so 
fully and faithfully that it can be no mere use 



Father — Mother. 141 

of words, no make-believe for teaching purposes, 
as loving as that would be in letting us know His 
heart love. The starry heavens above, the green 
fertile earth beneath, the answer of earth to 
heavens in life received, and of heavens to earth 
in life constantly given — all spell out that word 
*' father '' in the fullness of its mothered mean- 
ing. 

And if there be any doubt at all about this it 
disappears entirely as we stand on the foot of 
the hill of the Cross. A father gives of his life 
at the first that his child may come into life; 
then he gives constantly that his child may 
grow into fullness of matured life. And in any 
emergency that may arise he unhesitatingly gives 
of his life again, to the extreme of giving it out, 
that his child may be saved from death. 

It was Jesus who taught us to call God Father. 
The word was used before, but it was used very 
little. He taught us the blessed habit of using 
that word for God. But He did infinitely more 
than teach us the use of a word, even of that 
great word. He acted the father part for 
God on Calvary. God breathed out His life in 
Eden that we might come into life. And He 
bled out His life on Calvary that our life might 
be saved in time of terrible danger. Eden and 
Calvary both join in the spelling of that word 
'' father." And one must use both to spell it 
out fully. 



142 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

And all the loving preparation of the earth 
beforehand, and all His patient care of the life 
of the earth, and of the race ever since, regard- 
less of our ignoring of Him, and blaspheming of 
Him, all underscore that word with constantly 
new emphasis. God is our Father in the plain- 
est meaning of that word. 

Learning to Father. 

Why did God choose to be a father? With 
deepest reverence be it said, He couldn't help it. 
His love compelled Him to become our Father. 
Only so could He tell out the love of His heart. 
He is our Father. He has fathered the whole 
race from the beginning. He still does. He 
fathers every new precious bit of humanity that 
comes. He never fails to join His fatherhood 
with ours. Every child has two fathers, the 
human, and above him, the divine; the human, 
father of his body; the divine, of his spirit.^ 
No human being can be born as a human being, 
with immortal spirit as well as body^ without the 
direct creative touch of God upon him. 

There's another question that comes yet closer 
in these homely talks. Why did God choose this 
father-plan for us men that we too should be 
fathers bringing forth life in our own image and 
in His? He could, of course, have chosen some 
* Hebrews xii :g. 



Father — Mother. 143 

other plan if in His wisdom He saw best. Why 
this? Well, without doubt it was a part of the 
likeness of Himself which He was giving to us. 
He would make us to be fathers because He is 
a father. He is a creator ; He made us creators, 
too. We were to know the ecstasy of creating- 
love, as well as He. 

Then we were to have full fellowship with 
Him in His work. We were to be fellow- 
creators. Only those who are fully alike can be 
fellows, one both in spirit and in work together. 
The image of God in man was to be full, not par- 
tial. God made us in His image that we might 
be His fellows in creative work. He began the 
creative work. He made us to join hands with 
Him as His fellow human creators, continuing 
His work step by step, from generation to gen- 
eration, and He working with us at every step. 

And yet there is more than this. Above and 
underneath every other reason that may be 
thought of is this : by being fathers we can come 
to understand God's father-heart. So we come 
into that real knowledge of the strength and 
tenderness of His love that grips our hearts. 
Through the experience of fatherhood and 
motherhood we come nearest to knowing God. 
Only we are constantly reminded that He is so 
much more than we; but it is more of the 
same sort. 

Only through such experience can we come to 



144 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

know Him fully, with all the emphasis on that 
word " fully." So we enter into fullness of fel- 
lowship with Him. Only so can we understand 
God's heart in the depth of its tender yearning 
over us, and in the marvel of His giving His 
life out for us. 

And then there is a step farther yet that 
brings us still nearer to the practical: only as 
we get some glimpse of the father-heart of God 
can we be real fathers and mothers to our 
children. For as God is a father even so the 
father is a god. Father and mother are as God 
to the child. That is to say, they are to the child 
in the place of God, until the child's awakening 
thought can be transferred to his parents' God, 
and then find out how much more God is than 
they ; and yet simply " more," not different in 
kind. 

The child looks up to us, as we look up to 
God. The child gets his first thought of God 
from father and mother. What purity and love 
and wisdom and simplicity should we pray for 
and practice! We are the child's god. We 
are telling him by our lives what God is — if we 
are; maybe what He isn't. Whatever we are 
telling with presence and life that God is, in the 
child's thought. 



Father — Mother. 145 

Father Language, 

Though God is called a father in the Bible, 
He is never called a mother. Yet what we 
think of as the mother language is used of Him 
frequently. The phrase in the Psalms, " under 
the shadow of his wings," ^ with its variations, 
is of course the m.other language from bird and 
farm life. There is a quaint homeliness in the 
words of Jesus, as He is pouring out His distress 
over Jerusalem, that goes with peculiar power 
into one's heart. He said " even as a hen gath- 
ereth her brood under her wings." ^ That was 
the father-mother heart of God in Jesus crying 
out its grief over prodigal children. 

The word " brooding/' which is so character- 
istically a mother word, both before the birth 
and afterwards, is almost the very first word 
used of God in that great first Genesis chapter.^ 
It is actually the second. There is a great touch 
of realism, and of that which touches the human 
heart most, and most quickly, in that early vivid 
picture of God. 

Why is the word mother not used for God? 
Simply because " father " means " mother," too, 

* Psalms xvii :8 ; xxxvi 7 ; Ivii :i ; Ixi 14 ; Ixiii 7 ; 
xci:4; Ruth ii:i2. 

* Luke xiii 134, Matthew xxiii 137. 
' Genesis i :2. Revision, margin. 



146 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

with God. We call this sort of language mother 
language because it is so with us. But with God 
it is father language. Father means mother, 
too. Ah! who among us has grasped the full 
sweet dignity of being a father, a mother; a 
father and mother together united in one/ that 
so God's own great word *' father '' may stand 
truly for the two in one. No higher dignity was 
ever conferred upon man. It is a taking of us 
up, by God, to the level with Himself. 

Now, of course, this fatherhood of God is 
what the theologians would call His creative 
fatherhood, which includes all the race. There 
is still a higher, His redemptive fatherhood, 
which includes all who come back home to the 
Father through Jesus. Man became a prodigal. 
He left his Father. He still remains a son 
creatively^ but has cut himself off from the 
Father by sin. When he returns he becomes a 
son in a new higher sense also, a redeemed son. 
The Holy Spirit puts the child spirit into his 
heart and he instinctively calls God Father 
again.^ 

We are talking here about God's creative 
fatherhood, which began in Eden and has con- 
tinued through every generation, and still does. 
John's words about that higher fatherhood come 
all anew as we think of the only less wonders of 
God's creative fatherhood. " Behold what man- 
^ Romans viii:i5. 



Father — Mother. 147 

ner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us 
that we should be called children of God; and 
we are/' ^ And He is Father. And we, too, 
are to be fathers in His meaning of the word, by 
His fatherly help. So we enter into the inner 
heart of God. Behold what love, and what 
honor bestowed upon us! 

The Finest School Work. 



The father and mother together are to become 
a father. It takes two to make one. We are to 
go to school to our Father-God until the two 
joined in one shall be as He is in fatherhood. 
The father is to be a father with all the mother 
meaning, too. The mother is to be truly a 
father in strength and life even while her most 
loved name remains mother. And so the two 
together shall teach the child of his heavenly 
Father, by the father-life they two-in-one live to- 
gether before his eyes. 

This higher father life of father and mother 
together is the rarest of all schooling. The 
older we get, and the more we grow, the more 
we realize that life is all just going to school. 
It is school work from birth, to the new birth up 
into the unseen life above. And he gets most 
out of it, and gives most out to it who enters 
into all of his life with the real school spirit. 
^1 John iii:i. Revision. 



148 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

Earnestness of purpose, a humble remembering of 
how Httle we know, eagerness to learn, patience 
in the learning, willingness to work hard, — this 
is essentially the school spirit. 

Even when we know much there is always 
more; and the more we don't know is so much 
more than the much that we do know. God 
leads us here into the greatest schoolroom of 
life. It's a schoolroom for the child, of course, 
with us to play the part of teacher. But it is 
just as much a schoolroom for us who do the 
teaching. There is constant study, working out 
new problems, finding new meanings of words, 
training the mind to think, the heart to be wise 
in its loving, the spirit to be both strong and 
gentle^ the tongue to obey implicitly, the hand 
to be deft, the patience to be tireless, the bodily 
strength to be wisely conserved, — what school- 
ing! 

There are frequent reviews and tests and ex- 
aminations, promotions and demotions, too; for 
often the way up is down. And in and through 
is a Presence, unseen but that may be felt, a 
Father-Teacher, watching, smiling^ showing the 
next step, never tired nor critical, always eager 
and patient, with the true teacher-spirit, ever 
drawing us up the heights. 

It's the best kind of school because it com- 
bines teaching and being taught. It's going to 
school, and yet teaching school yourself. Every 



Father— Mother. 149 

bit that is gotten from the Teacher and the les- 
sons is being taught in one way or another all 
the time. There is no learning like that which 
must be put into use at once. And no teaching 
equals that which has come up out of life's ex- 
perience. 



Fatherhood. 



It means much more to be a father, even in 
the common limited meaning of that word, than 
many of us seem to have found out. It means 
thoughtfulness beforehand. Not merely thought- 
fulness about the life whose coming makes a 
father, but about one's self a long time before 
that glad event; because the man makes the 
father, even as the father the child. 

Whatever a man might wish to have his child 
be, that he must be himself for long years before. 
And what he would not have the growing son 
to be that he must not be. For the man gives 
himself out, physically and mentally, habits and 
thoughts and purpose, to become another one 
like himself. There are a great many men who 
have children who are not fathers, except in 
the barren technical and legal meaning. And 
there can be no meaning so empty of meaning 
as the legal and technical meaning. 

Fatherhood does not begin at the birth of a 



150 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals 

child. Its beginnings go as far back as a 
man is making his character by his habit of 
Hfe. 

And fatherhood ends — when? ever? In the 
best meaning, never. Yet there comes a distinct 
change in the relation when the child is grown 
to maturity, and especially when he enters into 
fullness of life with another. All through the 
tender years, the growing years, the difficult 
years bristling with questions, he is to be a father 
in ever growing richness of meaning, a mother- 
ing father, until he finds the highest image of 
manhood and of womanhood imprinted on his 
own, to whom he gave life. 

The father is the head of the home, with 
gentle dignity acting his full part as head. He 
is the priest and minister to his household. The 
simple word of thanksgiving at the meal, the 
gathering of the family together, morning or 
night or both, for reading a bit out of the old 
Book of God, and in simplest homeliest language 
giving thanks, and asking a blessing upon the 
circle — these belong to the father. They are a 
part of the simple meaning of the word 
" father.'' For a father is a priest or minister. 
He was a father before he was a priest, 
and only became priest because he was a 
father. 

The father is a human mediator between God 
and these whom he has created with God's part- 



Father — Mother 151 

nership. Quite apart from what a man's creed 
or church may be, he stands to his family for 
God, to teach of God, to lead in the worship of 
God, and to act the part of God's man to his 
own inner circle. And he stands to God for 
his family, to voice their thanksgiving, and 
needs. This is a part of his father part in the 
family. 

The father is the administrator of the home, 
with wisdom and firmness and much loving gen- 
tleness, holding all things true to the law of the 
little home realm. He is the teacher and com- 
panion of his children. His bread-earning 
takes him away for most of the day likely. But 
every other thing comes in distinctly second to 
the glad great service in the home. With the 
mother, he is in his home the teacher of the 
school, the consulting librarian of the book world, 
the president of the literary society, and of the 
social club, the chief craftsman of the workshop, 
to the group he is fathering. 

The problems, the unceasing questions, the 
difficulties, the temptations of his sons and 
daughters belong to him, up to and including 
the time when their love affairs begin to come. 
There is no greater achievement ever attained 
by any mortal than to get and to hold, clear 
through these years and experiences, the full 
simple unhesitating confidence of one's boys and 
girls. And there is no wealth of life, either in 



1^2 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals 

experience or brain or heart — with mere money 
not high enough up to be reckoned in — to be 
compared with this. 

A friend of ours had two little daughters. He 
was the secretary of the Young Men's Christian 
Association of his city. One day one of his 
daughters asked her mother to ask her father 
for a certain thing for her. The mother gently 
said, *' You ask papa yourself, dear." " Well," 
she hesitatingly said, "you know Tm not very 
well acquainted with papa." He was an earnest 
Christian man, with warm sympathetic heart, 
especially with workingmen, among whom he 
was a favorite. Yet he was all unconsciously 
teaching his daughter a meaning of God as 
father that left her poor. And he was missing 
a meaning that wov\ld have greatly enriched his 
heart for the work to which his whole life was 
so ardently and intelligently given. 

A neighbor had come into a home to talk a bit 
with the little three-year-old daughter of whom 
she was fond. " How many brothers have 
you?" she asked. "Three," promptly repHed 
the little one. " Three ? Why, I thought there 
were only two. What are the names of your 
three brothers?" And the little one replied, 
" Launcie and Teddo and Papa." And when 
the words were faithfully reported to the father 
in the evening, a new warmth gathered in 
his heart as he smiled, for he knew he had 



Father — Mother 153 

thus far been a real father-companion to his 
daughter. 



A Window into Fatherhood. 

One morning, a good many years ago, a boy 
of six or seven years was starting away for the 
district school, about a half-mile down the road. 
His mother went to the gate with him, putting 
his lunch basket in his hand, and, as she kissed 
him good-by, bidding him not to linger by the 
way, but to go straight to school, and come 
straight back. And she stood looking after him 
a little anxiously, for going to school was a new 
experience to him. 

And the boy, going down the road, came to 
the bridge he had to cross, wondered if he could 
see a fish, stopped a moment to look into the 
water, and saw the prettiest fish with the pretti- 
est yellow and red spots, and then saw another 
one, Vay down half way out from under a stone 
ledge. Then he suddenly remembered his 
mother's word and hastened on. But, just as he 
got off the bridge, there on the bush right in 
front was a butterfly with such beautiful, bright 
colors. And he put the lunch basket down, 
took his cap off, and creeping softly up to the 
bush, put his cap down on the butterfly — ^he 
thought. 



154 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

But, when he began very cautiously to lift the 
cap off, the butterfly wasn't there. Oh! there 
it was just ahead on that next bush, and he 
went up to that. But it flew off before he got 
there. And he went after it. And there they 
went, butterfly and boy. But the fly kept ahead, 
and by and by the boy suddenly remembered his 
mother's words. He guessed he'd better get to 
school as soon as he could. He turned around 
to get the lunch basket at the bridge. 

But the bridge wasn't there, and he couldn't 
see a thing familiar. He had gone so far that 
he had gotten clear away from anything he 
knew. So he quickly tried to get back, but he 
couldn't seem to find the bridge, nor anything 
that he knew. And he kept going till noon 
came, and hunger, but no lunch basket; then 
afternoon, and then shadows. At last he 
thought if he were to go through a field of com 
he saw he would find the way back. But the 
corn was higher than the boy, and he was soon 
more lost than ever. 

Then he remembered how his mother had told 
him often that if ever he was in trouble, if he'd 
pray, God would answer. Well, he thought he 
was in trouble now surely, and the only thing 
left to do was to pray. He knew two prayers, 
^'Now, I lay me," and "Our Father." The 
first didn't seem just suitable; he decided on the 
second. So he kneeled in the tall corn, and with 



Father— Mother. 155 

eyes shut and clasped hands began in a pretty- 
trembly voice, '' Our Father, which " 

Just then a man's voice said, '' Well, Isaac, 
what is it? " And there was his father just be- 
hind him in the corn ! And soon the tired-out 
boy was in his father's arms. And as they went 
back home the father talked quietly to his son, 
and told him how he had been thinking about 
him that morning, and had followed him think- 
ing something might happen to him in his new 
experience of going to school alone. He had 
followed, and watched all day, and then helped 
God answer his prayer. 

Then he said, " That's what God is like ; you 
can't see Him, but He is always watching you, 
not to find fault, though He sees the faults, but 
to help ; and He's always near," and a good deal 
more. And they reached home. The boy went 
to school, and to another school, and to college, 
and then to a seminary, and became a preacher, 
and then the president of a college in Eastern 
New York State. 

In his preaching he referred frequently to God 
as a father in a very warm and tender way. And 
when he was asked how he got such a tender 
idea of God, he would smile, and tell his boy- 
hood experience. What a blessed boy he was 
with such a father! And what a father! not 
only in his love, but in his wise using of an 
incident so small and commonplace. 



156 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

Was a day ever better spent, even though 
the daily round was all broken up? That day's 
experience with his father did more in making 
him the man he came to be than all the college 
and seminary days could have done wij?nout it. 
You can see big fields through a very narrow 
chink in a fence. That incident would be only 
one of a life-time with such a father. 

He who lives with his children, breathing the 
fragrance of his strength into their lives^ shar- 
ing with them his wisdom gotten in many a 
hard experience, nursing them up into fine- 
grained vigor, imparting to them the highest 
ideals, jealous of letting any one else teach them 
first the higher hallowed things, sharing the dif- 
ficulties and joys and sacred confidences — he is 
a father. And the father who has the father- 
heart, and gives himself to his children, will be 
receiving all afresh from them the spirit of con- 
fidence, and simplicity, and love, that will make 
his own life young, even while the gray is creep- 
ing in over ears and temples. 

TJie Superlative Degree of Woman. 

And why talk about mothers, when all the 
world unites in their praise! Woman's faith- 
fulness in home and churchy the two crisis points 
of life, stands out big and clear. In the gram- 
mar of experience the superlative degree of man 



Father — Mother. 157 

is woman, and the superlative degree of woman 
is mother. In the scheme of life a larger part 
of the holy tasks of home is entrusted to the 
mother hands. While the father must be bread- 
winner, her time is allotted to home duties. And 
her character well^fits her for such delicate, dif- 
ficult work. 

The fine blending of strength and brain with 
the tempering heart-traits, native to her woman 
genius, reveals the wisdom that assigns this 
part in the plan of life to her care. It was 
such a woman who inspired the pen that wrote 

" No clever, brilliant thinker she, 
With college record and degree; 
She has not known the paths of fame; 
The world has never heard her name; 
She walks in old long-trodden ways, 
The valleys of the yesterdays. 

"Home is her kingdom, love her dower; 
She seeks no other wand of power 
To make home sweet, bring heaven near, 
To win a smile and wipe a tear 
And do her duty day by day, 
In her own quiet place and way. 

"Around her childish hearts are twined, 
As round some reverend saint enshrined. 
And following hers the childish feet 
Are led to ideals true and sweet. 
And find all purity and good 
In her divinest motherhood. 



158 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

" She keeps her faith unshadowed still ; 
God rules the world in good and ill; 
Men in her creed are brave and true 
And women pure as pearls of dew, 
And life for her is high and grand 
By work and glad endeavor spanned. 

" This sad old earth's a brighter place 
All for the sunshine of her face; 
Her very smile a blessing throws, 
And hearts are happier where she goes; 
A gentle, clear-eyed messenger. 
To whisper love — thank God for her ! *' * 

Yet the collegian, and the clever brilliant 
thinker, w^hose service has been heralded afar 
from home, have had sweet victories here too. 
Such training and gifts cannot of themselves 
make a mother, and neither can they hinder 
motherhood, but may immensely enrich the life 
and simple home service when the heart guides 
and controls. 

And how can we talk of mothers tenderly 
enough to come home to any heart that really 
knows a real mother ! And yet the skilled artist 
continually keeps his eye up to tone by keeping 
at hand the primary colors in their purity. The 
Master Himself spent time off daily with the 
Father, and sometimes all day, and long nights, 
that He might keep the tone of His life up to 
the concert pitch of the upper-world standards. 
^ L. M. Montgomery. 



Father— Mother. 159 

And so we may well talk a bit further together 
of true motherhood, both for those who are 
mothers, and for those whose coming years hold 
that responsible joy in reserve for them. 

Need it be said, that motherhood, through 
which the race comes to birth, comes only to its 
own birth out of the womb of sacrifice ? Sacri- 
fice is the low undertone to all the music of a 
mother's life, for months before the birth-time, 
and through the long years after. It is a liv- 
ing sacrifice^ too. " I would die for you,'* said 
an earnest young wife to her husband. " Yes," 
he replied tenderly, " I know you would ; but 
there's something more than that that I need 
from you, that will cost you far more. I need 
you to live for me." 

The noble martyrdom of men whose lives went 
painfully out at the stake, may^ with all due rev- 
erence for their fidelity and courage, be called 
easy, when compared with the daily giving out 
of the life through the years by thousands of 
mothers. The giving of the life up to the flames 
has more sharp pain, intenser suffering, in it. 
The giving of it out just as really and fully, but 
slowly, gradually, year in and year out, in the 
same old round, but with an ever new smile, un- 
til the calendar's work is done, is a vastly more 
severe test. 

" So he died for his faith. That is fine. 
More than the most of us do. 



i6o Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

But stay. Can you add to that line 
That he lived for it, too? 

"It is easy to die. Men have died 
For a wish or a whim — 
From bravado or passion or pride. 
Was it hard for him? 

"But to live: every day to live out 
All the truth that he dreamt, 
While his friends met his conduct with doubt. 
And the world with contempt. 

"Was it thus that he plodded ahead, 
Never turning aside? 
Then we'll talk of the life that he led. 
Never mind how he died.'* 

And yet a far keener v^ord about sacrifice re- 
mains to be said. Those who talk most about 
their sacrifices, or even who think about them, 
may be making real sacrifice, but they usually 
know least of what sacrifice means. Those who 
sacrifice most think less^ and talk not at all, 
about their sacrifices. There are two definitions 
of sacrifice; the cheaper one in commoner use; 
and the other, the real one^ that like the trailing 
arbutus hides its sweet fragrance under the 
green. 

In the cheaper meaning sacrifice is giving up ; 
it is suffering, maybe suffering real pain for 
someone or something. And this is sacrifice, let 
it be said. In the deeper, richer meaning there 
is suffering, too; but that is only part; and, 



Father — Mother. i6i 

however keen and cutting, still the smaller part 
Sacrifice is love purposely giving itself, regard- 
less of the privation or pain involved, that so 
more of life's sweets may come to another. Sacri- 
fice is love meeting an emergency, and singing 
because you are able to meet and to grip it. 

The sweets of sacrifice sweep your spirit with 
their quiet ecstasy, even while the knife cuts 
deepest, and the pain tugs hardest. Love knows 
there will be the pain, and thinks of it, and 
deliberately decides to endure it, because so 
will come some great boon to another. And the 
joy of victory makes sweetest music, of which 
the sacrifice is the subdued minor under-chord- 
ing. 

A lady was calling upon a friend whose two 
children were brought in during the call. As 
they talked together the caller said eagerly, and 
yet with evidently no thought of the meaning of 
her words, '' Oh ! Td give my life to have two 
such children." And the mother replied, with 
a subdued earnestness whose quiet told of the 
depth of experience out of which her words 
came, '' That's exactly what it costs ! '' 

Yet there was a gleam of light in her eye, and 
a something in her manner, that told more 
plainly than words that though she had given 
much, she had gotten more, both in the pos- 
session of the children, and in the rare enrich- 
ment of her spirit. 



1 62 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

All life is made sacred by the deep red tinge- 
ing of sacrifice that runs through every bit of it 



"I could not at the first be born, 

But by another^s bitter, wailing pain; 
Another's loss must be my greatest gain. 
And love, only to gain what I might be, 
Must wet her couch forlorn 

With tears of blood, and sweat of agony. 

" Since then I cannot live a week 

But some fair thing must leave the daisied dells, 
The joys of pastures, bubbling springs and wells, 
And grassy murmurs of its peaceful days, 
To bleed in pain, and reek, 

And die, for me to tread life's pleasant ways. 

"Naked, I cannot clothed be, 

But worms must patient weave their satin 

shroud ; 
The sheep must shiver to the April cloud, 
Yielding his one white coat to keep me 
warm; 
In shop and factory 

For me must weary, toiling beings swarm. 

**I fall not on my knees and pray, 

But God must come from heaven to fetch that 

sigh, 
And pierced hands must take it back on high, 
And through His broken heart and cloven 
side, 
Love makes an open way 

For me, who could not live but that He died. 



Father — Mother. 1 63 

" Oh ! awful, sweetest life of mine, 

That man and God both serve in blood and 
and tears. 
If on myself I dare to spend 
This sacred thing in pleasure, lapped and 

reared, 
What am I but a hideous idol smeared 
With human blood?" 

The Symphony of Motherhood. 

No one can begin to tell the countless strug- 
gles^ out of which come the sweetest victories 
of motherhood. A bit of a story of the inner 
side came to us one day. It was told by a gen- 
tle-faced woman, whose eyes looked out at us 
like balls of subdued, kindly fire from under a 
softening drapery of iron-gray, and whose 
wrinkled face seemed to tell of battles fierce and 
long; and yet there was a great peace passing 
our understanding that told of victories greater 
than the fightings. 

It was of a young mother who had knelt to 
pray. It was late at night, near the midnight 
hour. Her husband was miles away, with the 
army, at the front. The babies were snugged 
carefully in, and sleeping soundly. The quiet 
of the night seemed so peaceful after the busy 
day, so full of numberless little important duties. 

She had been sitting by the lamplight, with an 
old Bible lying open, and some papers and pen. 
She had been putting down in simple black and 



164 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

white her covenant to rear these children for 
God. Life was a hard tug with her, — hard steady 
pulHng, long hours, and a very firm jaw needed 
to stretch the slender funds out over clothing 
and food and rent and all else. 

Now she was silently kneeling with closed 
eyes. And as she prayed there came a sense of 
a strange presence, an ugly unwholesome dark 
presence, intangible but very real. It shook her 
quite a bit, as she wondered. Then that pres- 
ence seemed to be daring her, defying her, and 
to her ears there seemed to come a very real 
audible growl, like a spiteful defying gutteral 
growl between shut teeth — u-u-uh-u-u-gh-gh. 

But she quietly prayed on, and still prayed on, 
and repeated her covenant. And that strange 
ominous something left her. And another pres- 
ence seemed nearer, and into her ears was 
spoken so clearly and tenderly the words, " In 
due season ye shall reap if ye faint not.'' And 
with that for a pillow, she lay down and found 
sweet sleep, and wakened in the early morning 
to the same tireless round. 

Many years came and went. While that 
strange experience was never repeated, many a 
time the sharpness of the struggle brought it 
vividly back to her. But she remained true to 
her purpose, and plodded on, holding hard to 
that night's message. 

And those babies? One is with her mother 



Father — Mother. 165 

in the Master's presence after a short life fra- 
grant for Jesus in her circle of friends. One has 
been singing the gospel to many hundreds; two 
others are telHng the story of Jesus weekly to 
crowds of eager listeners. God's *' due season '' 
brought a rich " reap " to the unfainting sower. 

And as we listened with a touch of awe we 
seemed to know that this was a bit of the in- 
side struggle that belongs to the rule rather than 
the exception. Love, struggle, sacrifice, vic- 
tory, great peace — these are the ever-recurrent 
notes in the sweet symphony of motherhood. 

Sacrifice is the a and the z, and all the 
vowels and consonants in between of mother- 
hood. But it is a sacrifice that spells love out 
bigger and brighter, and in the spelling rings 
the music of it sweeter and clearer than any 
other. Sacrifice is love at its best. There is no 
other spirit for motherhood ; no other key to un- 
lock its doors ; no other solution of its tangling 
problems; no other sure weapon to lay its foes 
low in the dust. And no other inspiration is equal 
to it for holding you steady, and true, true and 
steady in the fierce undertow of the tide of life. 
Aye, and no chambered symphony can equal its 
low, sweet music ; and nothing else can bring the 
rich, heart-satisfying results in the twilight of 
life's evening. 



1 66 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

Teaching Life's Language to Baby Lips. 

Motherhood's duties cannot be intrusted to 
other hands. It is a sad breach of Hfe's most 
sacred trust when that is done. There are emer- 
gencies, of course, when the mother's lack of 
strength makes help grateful, and when other 
hands must help. And there are women who 
have never borne children who are yet mothers 
of the best sort in heart and head and hand. But 
such transferring of the trust to other hands 
must always be reckoned the exceptional thing, 
done only under stress of storm. The mother 
may not give into other hands the moulding of 
that precious life, and the true mother won't, 
save when she must. No one can minister to 
child needs as the mother. 

"A little wound, a little ache, 
A little blistered thumb to take 
With touch of love and make it well — 
These things require a mother's spell. 
Ah, sweet the progress of the skill 
That science brings unto the ill. 
Vast range of methods new and fine; 
But when our little ones repine, 
The mother is the very best 
Of doctors into service prest. 

" Sunshine and air and mother's spell 
Of helping little lads get well. 
And helping little lassies, too — 



Father— Mother. 1 67 

Here are three remedies that do 
So much more, often, than the grave, 
Skilled hands that try so hard to save. 
For Doctor Mother, don't you know. 
Gives something more than skill — gives so 
Much of herself; gives, oh, so much 
Of love's sweet alchemy of touch! 

"Upon a little wardroom bed 
A little curl-encircled head, 
A little slender hand and pale, 
A little lonesome, homesick wail, 
Loved nursing best of skill and care, 
But, oh, behold the wonder there 
When Doctor Mother, bearing sun 
From where the wilding roses run. 
Leans down, with hungering love and kiss^ — 
There is no medicine like this ! 

** In little child-heart's hour of woe, 
Pain, ache or life-wound's throb and throe, 
The Doctor Mother knows so well 
The weaving of love's wonder-spell — 
Just what the little heart requires. 
Just how to cool the fever fires; 
Just how much tenderness and cheer 
Will calm the little doubt and fear. 
How much of tenderness will ease — 
Alone she knows such arts as these ! " * 

The newspapers a fev^ years ago had a bit 

from one of the Northv^estern States of more 

than passing interest. A mother was disturbed 

on finding that her little child couldn't talk. He 

* Baltimore Sun. 



1 68 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

would make strange sounds, but couldn't talk 
even baby talk. She consulted her physician 
wondering if the vocal organs were defective. 
He was a man of Finnish birth. A very brief 
examination disclosed the startling fact that this 
American woman's child was talking Finnish, 
and had been scolding her mother for not talking 
to her. The nurse-maid, into whose keeping the 
child had been almost wholly given, was a Fin- 
nish woman, and naturally talked in her mother 
tongue the endearing baby talk dear to all woman 
hearts. 

The discovery revealed at once who was 
moulding and mothering the child. The story is 
both amusing and pathetic. It was not a serious 
thing that the child should be taught some other 
language than the mother's. But it becomes a 
very serious thing when baby lips and child lips, 
the growing boys' and girls' lips are allowed to 
learn the language of life from any but mother 
and father lips. Many a man has gotten his 
moral grammar horribly tangled because it wasn't 
learned from the right lips. 

In Search of a Mother. 

The touch of being dining-table companions in 
a hotel for a while gave us acquaintance with a 
woman who gave us a little glimpse into her 
early life. She was a woman of old family and 



Father — Mother. 169 

good schooling, of gentle culture, and of much 
of the broader culture that foreign travel gives. 

One day, with a bit of the hunger from child- 
hood days still lingering in eye and voice, she 
said : " I have never had a mother such as you 
have had, though I have never seen your mother. 
Oh! She was kind, but she didn't talk with me 
about the things that a girl naturally inquires 
into as she grows up. And she didn't talk with 
me about anything with the seriousness of a 
mother-wise heart. And when I would go to her 
longing for real counsel, she would say, ' Oh ! 
I guess so,' or some such word, and never seem 
to feel my soul's yearnings." 

Another day, with a merry laugh, she told us 
a bit of a story of her child days. The childlike 
naturalness and simplicity, together with the 
touching pathos have made the story linger in our 
memories ever since. Her brother and she were 
sent to the country to live with their grand- 
mother, because the country was better than the 
city for little folks, they were told. They used 
to sit together, and talk about it, and say that 
they were the only little boy and girl there that 
had no real home and no father and mother. All 
the other little children had happy homes with 
fathers and mothers. And they felt bad. 

They talked it all over many times. And one 
day they decided to go to a village that they had 
heard of. It was about twelve miles away. She 



170 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

was the leader in the plan. She knew, she told 
her brother, that there was a home with a real 
father and mother waiting for them in that en- 
chanted village. They would be hugged and 
kissed every night when they were put to bed. 
She knew it would be so. So one day they took 
the book of poems, " The Lay of the Last Min- 
strel," that their nurse used to read them to sleep 
with, and a bandanna handkerchief in which they 
tied up their '' nighties/' and started down the 
road. 

They trudged along wearily, but they thought 
of the home with the father and mother who 
would take them in, and put warm arms around 
them, and kiss, and hug them. And the vision of 
warm arms and kisses ahead drew them on. 
About three miles down the road a former 
servant in their grandmother's home saw them, 
and came out, and asked where they were going. 
They said, *' We will tell you, but you must not 
tell anybody.'' And they told their little story. 
And then old Peggy, the servant said, '' But you 
are hungry ; come in and get something to eat." 

" No," they said, " it is twelve miles to and 

night will soon be here, and we must hurry 
on." 

But Peggy said they would make faster time 
if they would stop for something to eat, and a 
little rest. So in they went, and had a good meal, 
and a sleep. And when they wakened, — there 



Father — Mother. 171 

was grandmother's carriage waiting to take them 
back! And a short, unconventional, but very 
forceful sentence, which we understood instantly 
finished the story, — '' Peggy had peached." 

And as we listened with laughter, and some- 
thing wet in our eyes, the early hunger of the 
child-heart still seemed to look out at us from 
our friend's eyes; and it still haunts us as we 
tell the simple tale over for mothers' hearts to 
hear. There were fine family, good schooling, 
the culture and refinement that money can give, 
and some it couldn't give; but no mother nor 
father; money but no mother. Poor poverty- 
stricken lives! 

The Highest Union. 

But however much a father may do, or 
mother be, there is the finer work of father and 
mother together, the two acting as one in this 
holy ministry of love. The highest union of all 
is needed for this most sacred trust and task. 
The union of hearts comes first as love's work 
begins. The technical union of lives leads to the 
actual union of two lives into one. There needs 
to be a perfect union of hearts as lovers and 
friends living together, real full harmony of 
spirit under and above and through all the differ- 
ences of opinion and of viewpoint that go with 
strong individuality. 



172 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

Then there needs to be yet more: a deeper 
union of lives, a fuller, more closely interwoven 
union of lives as father and mother for the chil- 
dren's sake. The loom of common life together, 
with Love tending the loom, will do yet closer 
and closer weaving, if allowed to. Here is a 
new reason for oneness. These two are to be 
one, in the thought of the growing child. 

And that means a real union under the sur- 
face. For there is no keener eye nor under- 
standing, than that of the child. He is con- 
scious of the oneness, or the lack of it, long be- 
fore he is conscious of being conscious, before 
his lips could put the half-born thought into 
words. 

And then there is a step higher up. As the 
unseen Father in the home is allowed full sway 
He will be weaving the highest union of all, the 
union of character. The father will be growing 
the mother traits; and the mother the father 
traits, until God's word " father " shall be true 
of the two together as it cannot be of either one 
alone- 



THE BABE: A FRESH ACT OF GOD. 



The Latest Marvel of Creation. 

A Child for an Answer. 

The Child Character Fresh from God. 

The Babe is Telling the Glory of God. 

'' Their Angels!' 

Hurting a Child. 

The Babe's First Request. 

The Babe Preacher. 

Some Blessed Sermons. 

A Rare Experience. 

Life's Best Finishing School. 



Mother of Sorrows, I — 

But my Babe is on my breast; 

He resteth quiet there 

Who bringeth the weary rest; 

He lieth calm and still, 

Who bringeth the troubled peace, 

Who openeth prison doors 

And giveth the sad release; 

For there reacheth Him yet no sound, 

No echo of cry or moan; 

To-day, little Son, Httle Son, 

To-day Thou art all my own. 

Mother of Sorrows, I — 

And the sword shall pierce my heart; 

But to-day I hold Him close 

From the cruel world apart. 

It waits with smiting and gibes, 

With scourging and hatred and scorn, 

With hyssop and wormwood and gall. 

The cross and the crown of thorn; 

The nations shall watch Him die; 

Lifted upon the tree; 

But to-day, little Son, little Son, 
To-day Thou art safe with me. 

Annie Johnson Flint. 



THE BABE. 



The Latest Marvel of Creation. 

The new-born babe is a fresh act of God. 
He is the latest revelation of God's creative 
handiwork. He is God's last messenger to earth- 
The babe's presence so fresh and pure says all 
anew " God is faithful." Generations of sin 
and disobedience and ignoring of God by us men 
have not changed Him. His touch is upon 
this last babe as much as upon the first that lay 
in Eve's arms. Here is the latest impress of the 
wondrous image of God. 

The babe face is a new window of heaven. 
Through it the upper-world folks look down 
upon us. And through it we look up to them, 
gathered about the Father in the upper home. 
In those babe eyes the Father Himself is looking 
into our eyes, and we may look up into His. 
Each babe is a fresh touch of Eden's purity and 
beauty. 

He tells us of the early Eden life long ago, 
and of the new Eden life, — far ahead? — maybe 
less far than we think. He tells, too, of a present 

175 



176 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

Eden life if God may have His way, a blessed 
remnant of old Eden^ and an earnest of the yet 
more blessed new Eden ahead. The babe is 
God's prophecy of His coming plan for man. 
And the reality is always more than the 
prophecy. 

The babe is a marvel of organization. The 
fine adaptation and adjustment are exquisite. 
What wonderful precision of action ! Have you 
ever put your ear down over the baby's heart, 
and listened quietly and intently to that marvel- 
ous bit of human engineering? There is 
a touch of awe in its rhythmic thumping throb, 
as it tirelessly pumps the fresh life-current 
through all the body. No thoughtful man can 
study his own baby, and in his heart doubt the 
existence of God. 

And what a marvel of helplessness! His de- 
pendence upon others is so complete as to be 
pathetic. He is a bundle of wants, and yet he 
is utterly unable to tell one of them, though 
plainly enough he feels many of them before we 
are aware of them. His only language is a cry, 
an inarticulate cry. 

Yet the thoughtful mother-ear quickly learns 
the language of that cry. All babe cries are 
alike to an unlearned outsider. But the love- 
taught mother knows the difference between a 
distress signal and a request. One cry says 
plainly, " I'm in discomfort, or pain." Another 



The Babe. i77 

says just as plainly, " Please give me this or 
this." And the mother-linguist supplies the lack 
of definiteness by her thought. 

No babe of all the animal creation is so help- 
less. Because the finest takes the longest to 
grow. The highest must have the deepest 
foundation. Slow development^ with normal 
conditions means greater fineness and strength. 

And the babe is yet more a marvel of possi- 
bility. The man who will sway thousands to his 
will as the whirlwind sweeps the forest, lies 
sleeping in that babe. The organizer of the 
world's industries, or the leader of the world's 
thought, or the changer of the world's life, and 
of the map of the earth, is in that wee morsel of 
humanity lying in his mother's arms. 

That cooing voice may compel the whole 
world to listen. Those fat dainty fingers may 
pen words that a world will be eager to read, 
and ready to be moulded. A Wesley or a Fara- 
day may be there, only waiting the coming of 
his day of action. And, far more than these, the 
man who will re-live Jesus' life, with all its sim- 
plicity and purity and fragrance, in some humble 
corner, that shall touch and tinge deep the life of 
the crowd, may lie there all open to the impress 
of father and mother. 

The babe is like a clean slate. You may write 
upon it what you will. He is like a dry sponge 
ready to absorb all the moral moisture in the air 



178 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

'round about. We must always be grateful to 
the babe that inspired a father's heart to write: 

"Where did you come from, baby dear? 
Out of the everywhere into the here. 

"Where did you get those eyes so blue? 
Out of the sky as I came through. 

" What makes the light in them sparkle and spin ? 
Some of the starry spikes left in. 

"Where did you get that little tear? 
I found it waiting when I got here. 

"What makes your forehead so smooth and high? 
A soft hand stroked it as I went by. 

" What makes your cheek like a warm, white rose ? 
I saw something better than anyone knows. 

"Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss? 
Three angels gave me at once a kiss. 

"Where did you get this pearly ear? 
God spoke, and it came out to hear. 

"Where did you get those arms and hands? 
Love made itself into bonds and bands. 

"Feet, whence did you come, you darling things? 
From the same box as the cherub's wings. 

"How did they all come to be you? 
God thought about me, and so I grew. 



The Babe. 179 

" How did you come to us, you dear ? 
God thought about you, and so I am here." ^ 



A Child for an Answer. 

Jesus rescued the babe from out of the comer 
where he had been thrust, and restored him to 
his own rightful place in society again. That is, 
He did it as far as He could. He could do it 
wholly only as men entered wholly into His 
thought, and eagerly worked with Him. Jesus 
found the babe and his mother covered up by 
rubbish, neglected and enslaved, used and sold 
as common chattels. And He freed them to- 
gether to a marvelous extent. 

But the task is a continuous one. He must 
be allowed full sway in the life for the babe's 
sake. For only so can the babe come to his own. 
Every bit of sin and ignorance hits and hurts the 
babe, even though the connection may seem very 
remote. He absorbs the atmosphere of his sur- 
roundings. The freer we are from sin through 
the Master's blessed grace, and the more He is 
allowed to come in and sway our lives, the more 
do our babes come into their birthright. And 
what will one not do for his babe's sake ! 

One day Jesus preached a great, illustrated 
sermon to his own inner circle of disciples. 
They had been discussing very earnestly among 
* George MacDonald. 



i8o Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

themselves which one was the greatest, each one 
probably thinking of himself. It seems childish 
at first flush. Yet the discussion doesn't seem 
to have stopped yet, entirely, over in our neigh- 
borhood. Mark keenly, Jesus' answer was a 
child. He quietly called a little child, and set 
him in the midst of the group, and began talk- 
ing about the child character. 

This was His great simple answer to their 
ambitious self-seeking. They had gotten com- 
pletely away from the child-spirit. Their eager- 
ness to get ahead of each other in the kingdom 
of heaven was painful evidence of how little they 
knew of the spirit of that kingdom, and how 
thoroughly they were blocking their own way 
in. Jesus made the child their teacher; not by 
anything the child said; only by the speech of 
his presence. 

It was probably quite a young child. He 
would not seem to take in what the Master was 
speaking of; though the child always takes 
in far more than we think. Likely as not Jesus 
held him on His knee, and kept him interested, 
as He talked softly and quietly with the men. 
And the child would look up into His face, or 
maybe would snug his little head against the 
Master's bosom. For Jesus and the babes were 
always great friends and perfectly understood 
each other. It was a great acted-out parable of 
how He has been seeking to teach all men. 



The Babe. i8i 

That has been God's simple plan of teaching 
men everywhere from the beginning, — setting a 
child in the midst. He sets a child in our midst 
that from his young life we may learn the true 
spirit of life, the unhurt human spirit, the God- 
spirit. If in His love, He has set a child in the 
midst of your little circle, treat that child with 
utmost reverence, for he is God's teacher to you. 
In him God speaks to you very distinctly and 
earnestly. 

The Child Character Fresh from God. 

Shall we gather about the child with the Mas- 
ter Himself in our midst, and listen anew to 
some of the teaching? There are certain simple 
traits that stand out in the child character before 
the hurt of sin has gotten in enough to spoil 
or destroy them. 

First of all is purity. There is no thought of 
evil in the child mind. The circumstance, or 
word, or incident, or presence, that suggests evil 
of some sort to others is wholly free of any 
such suggestion to him. To the pure all things 
are pure. To the pure thought of the child all 
life is pure. The thing that suggests to many 
an opportunity of indulging some wrong desire, 
or ascribing a wrong motive, is quite free of that 
thought to his pure mind. 

This suggests at once how unnatural a thing 



1 82 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

sin is. Evil must be taught to the child by- 
speech, or example, or absorption, else he will 
not know it. The purity of early childhood is 
one of God's Eden gifts, and tells us constantly 
of the purity that belongs to us, and that we may 
have again. 

And a child's trust is wonderful beyond any 
comparison. No words can tell how simply and 
fully he trusts, nor what a blessing the trusting 
spirit is. His trust is simple and full. No sus- 
picion ever enters in. No sense of fear intrudes 
its disturbing presence. The trust is all the 
more striking because he must depend wholly 
upon others for everything. A child never 
knows fear until he is taught it. His fearless- 
ness in the presence of danger is superb, and is 
itself a powerful defense against the danger. 

And then the trait to which the Master called 
special attention that day is most marked. 
Nothing can surpass the child-spirit of humility. 
There is an utter absence of any self -thinking 
or self-seeking. There is a fine lack of self- 
consciousness. The child has not yet become 
conscious of himself. There is no self-fire burn- 
ing in his eye. His humility thus far is perfect. 
Humility is lack of self-consciousness. The 
child thinks wholly of others, so far as he has 
wakened up enough to think at all. 

And simplicity adds its great charm. There 
is a perfect naturalness and frank directness 



The Babe. 183 

about a child that is wholly unaffected. The 
conventional standards and requirements of life 
are blessedly unknown, and so cannot disturb. 
There is no democratic simplicity equal to a 
child's. He knows no distinction of class or 
rank. Everyone is taken wholly upon his own 
merits. Man's stamp on the guinea is wholly 
ignored. Only the gold attracts. The child is 
the greatest of all levelers. All comers are re- 
ceived on the same footing. 

And fully as marked as these, and as at- 
tractive, is the child's remarkable openness, its 
open-mindedness to all that comes. Indeed, he 
seems to be nothing but a huge opening, eagerly 
accepting and absorbing all that comes. He 
takes in all that comes as purest gospel. His 
questions are proverbial. And he is a wise par- 
ent who takes utmost pains to answer every 
question thoughtfully, and intelligently, and yet 
in simplest language, as he must do ; even though 
it seem like taking a protracted post-graduate 
university course, with more variety than any 
such course ever knew. 

The Babe is Telling the Glory of God, 

These traits are to have a fierce fight for life 
as, with the growing years, the child comes more 
into contact with life, and as his powers of ob- 
servation and absorption grow. Acquaintance 



184 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

with sin and wrong and wavering moral stand- 
ards, will threaten his native purity. Knowledge 
of danger and of the evil purposes of men 
breeds fear and distrust. Consciousness of self 
and of one's powers will tend very decidedly to 
teeter over into an undue sense of one's value. 

With that will likely come an increasing lack 
of consciousness of God, through whose presence 
and touch only, can come full power in our native 
gifts. The artificial standards which run all 
through life will lay sharp, steady siege to his 
simplicity. Prejudices and superstitions and 
half-truths which he has accepted as purest gos- 
pel will seriously aflfect that rare openness of 
mind. 

This is in some part a picture of the child 
as he comes to us fresh from the hand of God. 
Sin and fear, self-seeking and artificial distinc- 
tions, and the mind closed or partially closed by 
prejudice and misinformation and half-knowl- 
edge, are all acquired by touch with man, after 
he has left the hand of God. 

God is still setting the child in our midst that 
we may learn all anew the rare likeness in 
which we were made. This is the fine maturity 
of character to grow in knowledge of life, and 
yet to retain the early winsome child traits. 

To know sin, and yet keep pure; to know of 
danger and difficulty and the need of being 
keenly alert against them, and yet be unfaltering 



The Babe. 185 

in one's trust of the Father, and the outcome; 
to take one's place in the ranks, and play the full 
part assigned us with good self-reliance and full 
use of one's gifts, and yet to have the Master 
in so big that the thought of one's self falls into 
its true place, this is great achievement. 

To know the proper, needful conventionalities 
and fit into them^ and yet retain the sweet sim- 
plicity of the child spirit; to recognize the true 
worth of a man under all veneerings, and do full 
deference to all the Father's other children re- 
gardless of the accidental, outer trappings of 
gold or patch; and, maybe rarest of all, to keep 
an open mind to truth, in the midst of all the 
unconscious prejudices and preconceptions, from 
which no one seems wholly free, — all of this is 
to be growing up into the fine image of God. 
It is slow growth, too, but it may be sure and 
steady. And it takes very close companion- 
ing with the Original of the image, too. But 
He is very eager for that. 

This child character is a bit of the likeness 
of the glory of the Lord. That glory, in the 
desert cloud and on the mount, in the shifting 
Tent and the Solomon temple, always cast an awe 
over the spirits of men as they looked. The 
heavens above, and the earth beneath, are telling 
that wondrous glory by night and by day. But 
His glory was seen most when Jesus walked 
among men in His simple, true humanity. 



1 86 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

It is seen most to-day in the man and woman 
who in their fine matured strength retain these 
babe traits. And that glory may be seen daily 
in our midst, in the babe, with his sweet purity 
and unfailing trust, his humility and simplicity 
and openness. The babe is a new spirit fresh 
from the touch and from the presence of God, 
with His great wondrous glory just fresh upon 
his life. 

"And sometimes I can plainly see 
A glory fills the nursery; 
The morning star shines in his eyes; 
He answers far-off harmonies 
With notes ethereal, exquisite. 
So tender, joyous, thrilling-sweet, 
The spirit's inward ear they reach 
And tell me things past human speech." * 



Their Angels/- 



The babe is very near to God, and God is 
very near to the babe, very much nearer in actual 
truth than any of us know or think. The link 
between the two is very close. God is in the 
babe peculiarly. Is it because the babe is so 
much not understood and not appreciated even 
where he is tenderly loved? It may be so. Is 
it because he needs special guarding as he comes 
into the moral atmosphere of this earth, and of 
* Ella Broadus Robertson. 



The Babe. 187 

some home where perhaps God hasn't His right- 
ful place? 

These may both be so. But it is very likely, 
too, that it is simply because God's Spirit enters 
every human being, and remains, blessing and 
guarding and guiding. As the years come, and 
the world atmosphere seeps in, God is less and 
less in evidence, more and more crowded out. 
He never leaves entirely until He is quite forced 
out. That is the very tail end of that man's 
career. Whenever His presence is recognized 
and gladly yielded to, there come the new sweet 
consciousness, and new life. But the thing to 
mark just now is the intimacy of God with the 
babe. 

Just what did Jesus mean when He said, 
" Whoso shall receive one such little child in 
my name receiveth me ? " ^ Did he mean that 
kindness done to some child would be reckoned 
as done to Himself, and would be rewarded 
by Him ? It may be so ; quite likely. But more 
and more the words seem to mean simply this: 
that as the babe comes into the family, prayer- 
fully planned for, eagerly longed for, and 
warmly welcomed, God comes in with him. 

He that receiveth the babe into the home, as 

he was meant to be received, in His name whose 

life-giving touch is just fresh upon him, accepted 

as a sweet gift, and to be trained as a sacred life- 

^ Matthew xviii : 5. 



1 88 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

trust, he will find that he has been receiving God 
Himself all anew into the home, too. God is in 
the babe. 

And what did Jesus mean when, with that lit- 
tle child in His arms, or on His lap, He looked 
tenderly into the little pure face, and said, *' In 
heaven their angels do always behold the face 
of my father ? " ^ The angels are God's mes- 
sengers. They stand in His presence.^ They 
are constantly passing from God's presence to 
earth to do His bidding, and constantly return- 
ing again to His presence. They never tire in 
their glad service of doing the Father's bidding 
in ministering to us men. This is their work. 

This seems to be the only place where it is 
said that they see the Father's face. The phrase 
points to the intimacy between them and God. 
Jesus adds that peculiar reminder of the close- 
ness of their touch with the Father in speaking 
of their relation to babes. What does He 
mean? 

What can He mean but simply this: that an 
angel or a group of angels is appointed by the 
Father to the holy ministry of guarding each 
babe. And that these angels go up into the 
Father's very presence to tell of the babe, and 
receive fresh instructions, and then hasten back 
with glad feet to continue their precious min- 

* Matthew xviii :io. 
'Luke 1:19; Revelation viii:2; Daniel viiiio. 



The Babe. 189 

istry. It means this with all the tenderness that 
such meaning can have: the babe is very much 
on Gk)d's heart; He is very dear to God. 

" The baby has no skies 
But mother's eyes; 
Nor any God above, 
But mother's love. 
His angel sees the Father's face, 
But he the mother's, full of grace; 
And yet the heavenly kingdom is of such as this/'^ 



Hurting a Child. 

And as if to emphasize this all the more Jesus 
added this other word : " See that ye despise 
not one of these little ones." ^ The word the 
Master used means more than that word 
" despise/' That word of ours means to think 
meanly of, or to scorn. The Master's word 
means yet more : see that you do not think either 
slightingly or lightly of them; do not fail to 
think much, and very highly of them. They 
are worthy of your best thought, whoever 
you are. Then comes the statement about 
the angels to show what the Father thinks of 
them. 

" Despise '' means what the disciples did when, 
another time, they rebuked the eager parents who 

* John B. Tabb. 
' Matthew xviii :io. 



igo Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

brought their children to Jesus for His blessing.^ 
In their ignorance and thoughtlessness the 
disciples feared that the children were not 
worthy of so much thought. They feared the 
Master would only be bothered. Poor men! 
Jesus was '' moved with indignation " ; more lit- 
erally, He was pained or distressed. Ah! the 
Master taught that they are worthy of the best 
thought of the best trained brain. They are 
very dear to God, and were to Jesus when He 
was here, and should be to all of us. 

And the child is peculiarly open to God. The 
child heart and ear naturally open upward. 
They hear readily, and believe easily. The road- 
way of the ear has not been beaten down hard 
by much travel. It is still soft and impression- 
able because of the dew and the gentle rain of 
God's direct touch. The world's sun has not yet 
gotten in to dry and parch and harden. 

The child nature is peculiarly sensitive to God. 
He is born with a nature open to God. In- 
stances are numerous of children, in the very 
young tender years, talking to God in a way that 
shows how real He is to them, and of their go- 
ing off alone to pray when not aware of being 
noticed. The answers of very young children 
to questions about God are often surprisingly 
intelligent. 

And while this has sometimes grown with the 
* Mark x: 13-16. 



The Babe. 191 

years, many times, maybe most times, as they 
have gotten a bit older, and mingled more with 
people, and absorbed the outside moral atmos- 
phere, this simple faith in God, and eagerness 
for Him, and consciousness of His presence and 
care have gradually gone away. 

Was this what Jesus meant when, in that same 
famous child passage ^ we have been quoting, 
He uttered the solemn warning against those 
who cause these little ones to stumble? The 
heartlessness of putting out your foot to trip 
up the innocent confiding child, and send him 
sprawling, to carry scars to the end, and never 
to get quite back to the early simple faith ! And 
yet so common. 

The Babe's First Request. 

The babe is a messenger. He is a new mes- 
senger straight from God to the home where 
he comes. If we would but remember, and 
look, and listen, we would see so much, and 
hear so much blessed teaching. The babe begins 
his teaching mission before he comes. Being 
born is one of the few things with which we 
have nothing to do. We have no choice in be- 
ing born, nor in the matter of the sex, the place, 
nor the class of society into which we shall be 
born. 

^ Matthew xviii:i-ii. 



192 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

And yet if the babe could express a preference^ 
would not we, who give him birth, be greatly in- 
fluenced by his choice? If father and mother 
would habitually soften their spirit, so as to hear 
the inaudible voices in the air that do speak to 
us, and try to catch their babe's wish long before 
he is here, what would they hear? 

Well, he would ask earnestly that no element 
of chance enter into his coming; and yet more 
earnestly, that nothing but the purest, highest 
motives and desires lie back of his being given 
life. He would ask that, for his own sake, he 
be brought into his great inheritance of life in 
the way that his divine Father planned and 
plans. 

Then he would surely remind us of how help- 
less he will be at the first, and for many months 
and years. He would ask that the whole plan of 
the home life be thoughtfully arranged, that 
after he has come he may enter into his full in- 
heritance of physical vigor; for so only could 
he fulfil his mission as babe and growing child. 

He would ask that the moral air in the home, 
which he must breathe, be wholesomely pure and 
sweet, and strong, because he will absorb that 
air whatever it may be, and be made by it. And 
then he would surely ask that his training be 
thought of, and provided for, that so he may 
enter into his full heritage of mental power. So 
he will be able to do well his share of the 



The Babe. 193 

world's work, and be keener in his enjoyment 
and appreciation of the world's beauty and 
sweets. This is a bit of what the babe will teach 
long before he comes, if we will train the ears of 
our hearts, in the soft solitude of the spirit- 
world, to listen. 



The Babe Preacher. 

And with his arrival the teaching comes thick 
and fast. The babe is God's gospel of life 
spelled out all anew for us. Our love for the 
babe tells of the other father-mother love. 
What can equal the love for the babe among al- 
most all classes of people? The unwearying at- 
tendance, the broken sleep, sometimes the sleep- 
less nights, the dropping of ever}1:hing else to 
attend to his wants, the tender touch, the yearn- 
ing of heart over him, the ceaseless breathing 
out of love in the innumerable ways and things 
in which the human heart reveals itself, — is there 
any human love quite like it? 

That's a bit of the babe's gospel teaching. 
That is the way God feels toward us, only He 
is so much more. His is the original love. All 
of our love for the babe is breathed down into 
us by Him. There's much more, and much 
tenderer and stronger where this comes from. 
We have not exhausted the supply, nor made it 
less, nor poorer in quality. 



194 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

And then the babe's helplessness is a great 
teaching. His helplessness is really pathetic. 
He can't do a thing for himself except breathe 
and suck milk. And the breathing is involun- 
tary. And the milk must be put into his mouth 
for him. Everything must be done for him, in- 
cluding his thinking. His very helpless depend- 
ence teaches the listening heart continually. 

All unconsciously our babe-teacher is saying, 
" This is what you're like." And the more we 
listen to him and think^ the more we realize the 
startling truth of this little, God-sent preacher's 
message. The strongest, most self-reliant of 
us is utterly helpless of himself. The very 
breath of life is being actually supplied to us 
all the time by Another. We are just as de- 
pendent upon Him as the babe upon his parents. 
Without attention and care the child would 
quickly die. Without our Father's constant 
care we would as surely slip the tether of life. 

And of course helplessness spells trust. The 
babe trusts absolutely. What else can he do? 
He must live a life of trust from the first breath 
on. And that is God's plan for us. We grow 
in knowledge, and in ability, and in skill in man- 
aging our affairs, but we never grow beyond the 
need of trusting as fearlessly, and fully, and in 
as practical ways, as the babe must do. 

And both the helplessness and trust tell of 
the other side, a Helper, and One who can be 



The Babe. 195 

trusted. God is " a very present help in 
trouble," ^ and when there is no trouble that we 
know about. And He can be trusted. God is 
absolutely trustworthy and dependable. 

And the babe purity tells of the Father's plan 
for us, and of His eager yearning, and more, 
of what He will do for us if He may. What- 
ever of evil may come into one's life, comes in 
after he leaves the creating hand of God. We 
were made pure, though of course with the pos- 
sibility of sin in our freedom of choice. 
Whether there be any taint of original sin in 
the babe, and just what that means, we may 
safely leave entirely with the theologians to 
thresh out behind seminary walls. It is enough 
practically for us to remember that God reckons 
only with our choices. He made us pure. He 
longs to have us pure. He will re-make us pure 
in heart, and increasingly pure in life, if we'll 
but let Him. The babe is our sweet unconscious 
teacher here. 

And this babe-preacher plainly includes sacri- 
fice in his teaching. Life can come only as an- 
other's life is given. Sometimes it comes only 
as the other life is given utterly out. This is 
one of the saddest of life's tragedies, when the 
mother goes as the babe comes. But even when 
that extreme is spared, still life costs life. Life 
comes out of life, with suffering as a com- 
panion. There can be no life without sacrifice. 
* Psalm xlvi:i. 



196 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

It will not be difficult for the thoughtful father 
and mother, in the lamplight of their own ex- 
perience, to find enough letters in the word 
*' cradle," brought to them by their babe, to spell 
out the infinitely greater word '' Calvary." 

And life can continue only as life is given 
continually, and can become strong only as 
strength is given out of a strong life. A won- 
derful preacher is this babe fresh from the school 
of God. 

And so the teaching goes on more and more as 
the tender month-counting stage runs into the 
only less tender year-counting telling of age. 
Through all the fascinations of change and 
growth from infancy up to young manhood and 
womanhood it constantly changes, but never 
quits. 

Some Blessed Sermons. 



Everybody can bring up incidents here full of 
sweet teachings. A young father was wakened 
early one morning, while it was still dark, by his 
young son in the cradle at his side, asking for a 
drink. When his thirst was satisfied, and the 
father had lain down again, the little fellow 
asked if he might sing. But his singing became 
so lusty that an embargo had to be put upon 
the service of song for the sake of the other 
sleepers. 



The Babe. 197 

There was silence for a brief moment. Then 
it was broken again by the child's voice. 
"Father.^' "Yes, little lad." "Is your face 
turned this way ? " And, with his heart strangely 
stirred and warmed, the father tenderly said, 
" Yes, laddie." And the night shined as the 
light, for the boy, because of his father's face. 
Ah! If we would remember that the Father's 
face is always turned this way. If ever we don't 
see clearly, it's because of our face's turning, not 
His. 

One evening a little girl went to her father 
with a troubled face, and quivering lip, and said, 
"Papa, is God dead?" He was a Christian 
man, but had grown cold in his Christian life. 
One evidence of it was that family prayers in 
which he had once been faithful, had been omit- 
ted entirely. When the troubled face looked up 
into his with the strange question, he was sur- 
prised, and said, " Why, no, dear, why do you 
ask such a question ? " " Because you never 
talk to him any more the way you used to do." 
And the little unconscious preacher for God, 
with her troubled eyes, led her father into a new 
Hfe. 

A little fellow was just learning to spell, and 
was eagerly using his new knowledge all the 
time. His father was an infidel of the common 
sort that boasts of the infidelity and tries to 
push it on others. He had hung up a motto 



198 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

on the wall of his home. It read, " God is 
nowhere." 

The child's eye wandered to the motto, and 
he commenced spelling : " G-o-d God, i-s is, 
n-o-w now^ h-e-r-e here. God is now here." 
If a voice had suddenly spoken out of the clouds 
the father could not have been more surprised 
at the new meaning of his motto, nor more 
startled in spirit. His early training had been 
Christian. The result was that he adopted his 
son's spelling for life. *' A little child shall lead 
them." ^ Is not the child God's best preacher? 

A widowed mother was talking with her four- 
year-old daughter one evening. The father had 
died when the child was but a babe. The mother 
felt her loss very keenly. She had taught the 
little one faithfully about Jesus, and His care of 
us. And the teaching was taken with all the 
literalness of a child's understanding and in- 
terpretation. 

This evening the mother was a bit depressed 
in spirit, and talking half to the child, and half 
to herself, she exclaimed, '* Oh ! I don't know 
how we shall ever get along without father." 
And God's little preacher looked up into her 
mother's face so earnestly and said so simply, 
" Why, mother, Jesus will take care of us." And 
a new warming sense of the power of what she 
had taught her daughter came into the mother's 
^ Isaiah xi :6. 



The Babe. 199 

heart to steady and strengthen her, and still 
abides with her. 

"A tender child of summers three, 
Seeking her little bed at night, 
Paused on the dark stair timidly. 
'Oh! mother! take my hand,' said she, 
'And then the dark will all be light.' 

"We older children grope our way 
From dark behind to dark before; 
And only when our hands we lay, 
Dear Lord, in Thine, the night is day. 
And there is darkness nevermore. 

"Reach downward to the sunless days. 
Wherein our guides are blind as we. 

And faith is small and hope delays; 

Take Thou the hands of prayer we raise, 
And let us feel the light of Thee ! " ' 

And the babe is not limited in his blessed 
preaching to the immediate family circle. His 
influence upon the outer life of the world is im- 
mense. He aflfects the whole world's life 
through the inner circle. And he touches that 
outer circle directly, too, with a peculiarly potent 
subtle touch. Wherever a babe is taken, men 
will pay him deference. They will give special 
deference to a mother because of the babe in her 
arms. The look of that little new face influences 
all sorts of men and women far more than they 
show, and really more than they know. 

^John Greenleaf Whittier. 



200 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

"Full hard his face; for pelf and place, 
Rough rivalry in bargains keen 
Had made the man a mere machine 

To grind and get of profits net 
Enough to keep his balance clean. 

To such a face a baby smiled; 

The thing of iron became a child! 

"Full false her face; with rapid pace 
The alchemy of Fashion^s wiles, 
Transforming graces into guiles, 
Made beauty's tryst, once angel-kissed, 

The sportive haunt of hollow smiles. 
Yet lo, when baby laughed and cooed 
A soul from out that face was wooed! 

" So any face, how low or base. 
How marred or scarred by any ill. 
To semblance of God's image will 

Return again the instant when 
Of baby's smile it drinks its fill. 

For baby's smile is Love's device 

To lure us back to Paradise 1 " ^ 

A Rare Experience, 

It was our rare privilege at one time to have 
intrusted to our care for some weeks a sick babe. 
The wee morsel of humanity coming so com- 
pletely in our life brought sweet influences that 
affected us greatly, and will continue to for all 
time. We shall always count that experience 
one of the blessings to give devout thanks for, 

* Louis M. Waterman. 



The Babe. 201 

and one of the trainings whose power upon us 
has been beyond calculation. It is enshrined as 
one of the hallowed times. 

Yet it cost us much. For one of us it meant 
sleepless nights, practically sleepless, while the 
babe was being watched and prayerfully studied, 
until the coveted habit of sleep, which the little 
fellow needed so sorely, began to be well fixed. 
And after that it meant always broken sleep that 
his needs might be attended to. It meant un- 
remitting, thoughtful care and devotion every 
waking hour of the twenty-four, and the keenest 
thinking at command. 

For that little while our life was poured out 
into the babe in countless ways. The new life 
and vigor that quickly came to him was really 
our life given to him. He drew out the tender- 
est love, and proved to be a worthy subject for 
the best powers of observation and study we 
could rally. And without doubt he brought to 
us unwittingly a new keenness of observation 
and of thinking. 

Daily he made us feel that the babe is worthy 
of the best brain power of the best equipped 
and trained man and woman. What finesse and 
diplomacy and patience and tireless giving out 
of strength he did take! We gave much and 
we felt the giving, too. But we received far 
more than we gave. We felt that, too, blessedly 
felt it, and have been feeling it ever since. 



202 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

Every mother, who is a mother in heart as 
well as in name, knows the old story. And 
every father should know a great deal of it, 
though he never knows quite as much as the 
mother. But the more he knows of it the better 
a father will he be, the stronger and manlier a 
man, the keener and more thoughtful and gentler 
in all his contacts. Every duty done, whether 
as business man, or citizen, or in social life, will 
bear the impress of the larger, finer man grown 
within him by such experience. 

Life's Best Finishing School. 



Into the inner chamber of privilege and train- 
ing with the child from babyhood on, we would, 
if we could, woo many a man, who has a child 
but is not a father, and many a woman whose 
child has yet to know a real mother, for their 
own sakes, as well as for the babe's. The ad- 
mission fee at the door is very high. Mere 
money never gets admission; only life tinged 
with its own spilling. The doorkeeper is very 
insistent on being paid. There is daily toll to 
be paid, too, — red toll, given, like the Spirit, with- 
out measure, and poured out without stint. 

But there are precious secrets of heart and 
brain and life in that inner room never gotten 
elsewhere. Here is the keenest stimulant for the 
brain; for love is the best brain tonic, and a 



The Babe. 203 

mother's best of all. And with the stimulant 
goes rare opportunity for the culture of the men- 
tal powers. There is that rarest of all social 
polishing, — gentle consideration, fine self-control, 
and kindly regard for others, which underlies all 
true courtliness. 

Here, too, is opportunity for a divinity course 
really divine, the nearest to first hand it is pos- 
sible to get down here, such as the seminary 
never ofifered nor can, with such freshness and 
warmth of treatment as to attract all hearts. 

But the doorway in is very narrow. And of 
the multitudes of those who have borne chil- 
dren it must be said, with gentle softness, but 
faithful plainness, few there be that go in 
thereat. Yet the number increases daily. 
Though the fees are high, and the requirements 
exacting, the enriched life, and trained thought, 
and sweetened spirit, and strengthened will, and 
broadened outlook, and mellowed sympathy 
with all men, make all payments seem small 
afterwards, and the requirements easy. 

And the two teachers, the babe and the unseen 
Head-master, bring such sweets of friendship 
as had not been dreamed possible. Yet one needs 
to keep very, very close to the Head-master, and 
to practice great patience, for only so do these 
finest results come. 



HEREDITY: THE INFLUENCES 
THAT GO BEFORE. 



The Lineal Face. 
Fascinating Possibilities. 
The Help of Heredity. 
" The Blood is the Life!' 
Precious, Awful Power. 
Deciding the Life-bent. 
The Brooding Father. 



"Oh, wondrous mystery of motherhood! 
That with one life another should be blent 
In union perfect, till each good intent 
Or thought of ill that drives away the good, 
The mother's strong desire or wayward mood, 

Should, to the soul unborn, a secret bent 
For good, or ill, impart." 



HEREDITY. 



The Lineal Face, 

The- child is born an heir. He is heir to all 
that is in two long family lines. Some part of 
his inheritance he never may, almost certainly, 
never will, come into. But it is quite impossible 
to say what part he won't come into, and what 
part he will. It is always within the possibil- 
ities, and never outside of the probabilities^ that 
he may come into any part of that heritage. 

He is a composite of his ancestral line, the 
latest composite, containing more than any previ- 
ous one. All that has entered into the make-up 
of those who have gone before on each side in- 
termingles and comes together in him. The 
characteristics and peculiarities, the gifts and 
powers and quirks are all there. All will not 
appear in him. But you can't tell what will ap- 
pear, and what won't. 

A few years ago composite photography had 
quite a run. The members of a college class, or 
a society, or other such group, would be photo- 
graphed in turn, each face being photographed 

207 



2o8 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

on top o£ the previous photograph, so that all 
eyes would come together, and so with each of 
the features. In that way it was sought to get 
the type of the whole group. The results were 
always of intense interest, especially to the mem- 
bers of the group, each of whom had given of 
himself to make up the type. 

The child is something like that. All the 
faces that have gone before of two long lines 
look out of the child's face. They will look 
out more and more as he matures, and increases 
in maturity. Some of these faces we will never 
recognize; others will be quickly recognized. 
If we knew more of the past generations we 
would recognize more. Some features never re- 
appear. Some one face may stand out most of 
all. But you can never tell what face and what 
feature of a face will appear most strongly. 

Fascinating Possibilities. 



The babe is a composite, immediately and most, 
of his parents. He is more than either, because 
he is all of both. He is all that they both are, 
plus their undeveloped possibilities, their dor- 
mant powers, and minus their prejudices and 
superstitions. He is the essence of all the pre- 
ceding generations. More strains come to- 
gether, and blend, and inter-act, in him than in 
either father or mother, or in any ancestor, for 



Heredity. 209 

he includes them all. Two lines are heading up 
anew in this new babe. 

The possibilities of the new life are endless 
and fascinating. The changes of transmission 
run into unceasing variety. Some part of what 
has lain asleep in father and mother may wake 
up into vigorous life in the child. A power or 
trait that has been dormant through one, or many 
generations, may come out again, and come out 
with more vigor than before. 

What has been alert and active in parents may 
be dormant in the child. Or, it may reappear 
in a much more decided form, or in a less de- 
cided. The good may be better, or not so good ; 
the bad worse, or less bad ; the strength stronger, 
or less so; the weakness more marked, or less; 
the talent be of a finer sort, or not so fine; the 
inclination or mood more pronounced, or not 
so much so. 

Then the new combination of the union of the 
two parents may work out new characteristics 
in the child. There may come just the com- 
bination that lifts talent up into the realm of 
genius. What has been a steady plodding trait 
in the father may, in combination with the blood 
of the mother, reappear as a brilliant inspira- 
tional gift. So geniuses are born of common- 
place people. And so, on the other side, com- 
monplace persons are born of those marked by 
genius. 



2IO Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

Then, too, what has been held in check by the 
parents may reappear, or disappear. Through 
the restraint of conventionaHty, or by years of 
hard self-discipHne, or by God's grace working 
with the discipHne, or by any two of these, or all 
three combined, much that is undesirable may 
have been restrained in the parents' life. Any 
of this may reappear in the child in equal or 
less or greater vigor ; or may disappear. A mar- 
vel of possibility is this child whom we have 
brought into life. And a great problem he is, 
for endless, keen, patient study, and for unceas- 
ing, steady prayer. 

The Help of Heredity. 



There are a good many thoughtful men in 
educational circles, who are disposed to make 
little or nothing of heredity, and everything of 
training. There'll be more to say of their em- 
phasis on training when we come to that talk. 
There is no doubt at all that some have over- 
emphasized the heredity side in their study of 
life. 

All things should be kept in proportion. The 
common pendulum swing, first one extreme 
then the other, should be avoided. Heredity 
can be taught in an extreme way, that will pro- 
duce in some a sort of morbid fatalism that 
checks all growth. That's bad, of course. But 



Heredity. 211 

then it mustn't be left out, because it can't be. 
It won't stay out. It's in, and in to stay. 
Heredity supplies the stuff to be trained. But 
it can be studied in a purely practical way, and 
that is all that concerns us here. 

The word '' heredity " stands for all the in- 
fluences that enter into the making of character 
before birth. And there is an intensely practical 
side to it for us who are past that line, because 
it concerns the making of our own character; 
and, even more, it concerns the making of the 
character of the lives that we are to bring. 

It puts a man on his guard at once to know 
of evil or weak tendencies he may have in- 
herited. Forewarned is forearmed. The man 
whose father had a strong appetite for intox- 
icants, not always controlled, knows at once that 
he must be far more cautious and stern with 
himself than one who has no such taint in his 
blood. He will wisely lean over backwards to 
avoid that which would have an easier task to 
grip and throw him, if it once got an opening. 

If one's father has been an easy spender, un- 
able to hold money in his fingers ; or, has gone to 
the extreme of closeness in the use of his money, 
that will influence the child. But to know of 
the bent either way will help an earnest man 
to avoid the inherited tendency which he may 
find cropping out above the soil of his life, and 
it will help him, too, to avoid swinging to 



212 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

the very opposite extreme, as is so often done. 

It helps greatly, to remember that the in- 
heritance is a tendency only; nothing more. 
The child doesn't inherit a disease, though he 
may inherit a tendency toward it. The tendency 
of whatever sort may be very strong. Yet it is 
only a tendency in the beginning. So all in- 
herited traits are tendencies, more or less strong. 

The early atmosphere, and then the habit, 
and then greatest of all, the will, decide what 
shall become of that tendency. The tendency 
toward an evil thing can be gripped and choked 
if it is known. The tendency toward a good 
trait can be guarded, or carelessly weakened, or 
wilfully destroyed, or it can be built up. 

At the same time it is an enormous advantage 
to the earnest, ambitious young man or young 
woman to know of strong, desirable traits 
and tendencies inherited. It gives an element of 
confidence in developing one's character in those 
directions; though care should be taken not 
to presume on heredity here. For the inher- 
ited tendency which makes a thing easier must 
be cultivated and schooled if it is to grow into 
real strength in its own right. 

" The Blood is the Life/' 



But important and practical as all this is, 
there is something else vastly more important. 



Heredity. 213 

and of yet more intense practicality. And that 
is this: we may give to our children the sort 
of heredity we want them to have. We do give 
them a heredity, their chief heredity. We make 
their character; not wholly, but practically so. 
The generation that gives birth to the child is the 
most potent of all in influencing his character. 
It is more than all previous generations put to- 
gether. All preceding generations exert an 
influence. There can be no question of 
that. 

But we who give the child its life have the 
most to say as to just what that life shall be in 
every regard, physically, and mentally, and in 
the spirit that animates and controls. This at 
once makes heredity an immensely practical af- 
fair. This is the chief side of the question in 
which we are interested here. But our inter- 
est is warm to the point of being hot, and hot 
to the degree of white heat. 

What we are makes our child's inheritance. 
His physical character, — health and vigor and 
traits; his mental powers and tastes and tend- 
encies; his habit of being thoughtful or 
thoughtless, thorough or shallow, generous or 
close, frugal or shiftless, cheery or gloomy, 
methodical or slovenly, — these will largely get 
their bent from us, in what we are. His thought 
of God, and attitude toward Him, His prayer- 
fulness, and purposefulness, and devotion, will 



214 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

come in no small degree by blood inheritance. 
The babe becomes a second edition of his par- 
ents. What we are in ourselves determines very 
largely what he shall be in himself. 

Now, this is true of our whole life. It is 
never too early to be thinking of this, for the 
whole sweep of the life is included. From the 
time when we begin making choices, and so mak- 
ing character, we are making up the heritage 
of other lives that some day will be here. 

There can be no question that the rebellion of 
Absalom, which nearly broke up the Hebrew na- 
tion, and affected the entire after-life of the peo- 
ple, and sadly embittered the rest of David's 
years, was in David's blood long before it broke 
out in his son's actions. The chapter of ugly 
things that went before that rebellion had al- 
ready been written by David's hand, in his own 
life, by his own choice. 

Amnon's unholy passion, his cowardly indulg- 
ing of it, and contemptible treatment of his half- 
sister; Absalom's lawless and bloody revenge, 
and then the rebellion itself, — all this was simply 
a working out of tendencies received from a 
father and pushed out to their logical conclu- 
sion. They could have been wholly restrained 
by training, but then they weren't. 

One of the most famous illustrations of the 
power of heredity is that of Hannah and her 
son Samuel. It's a relief to turn to it from the 



Heredity. 215 

later David story. For here the influence was 
all good. And the blessing of it affected the 
whole nation for long years after. It is the 
more striking because plainly the whole affair 
was of God's planning^ in order to be able to 
carry out His broader plans for the nation. He 
must carry out those plans through some human 
channel. And He used heredity to get the right 
sort of a man. 

While there is no means of counting exact 
years, it is quite likely that Hannah's soul-trying 
experiences ran through at least ten years, and 
maybe a much longer time. Those experiences 
were her childlessness, which every Hebrew 
woman peculiarly felt to be a reproach ; the con- 
temptible picking and nagging of her constantly 
for years by the rival wife of the home because 
of that childlessness ; her own sore bitterness of 
spirit, notwithstanding her husband's tender- 
ness ; the drawing out of her soul to God in in- 
tense yearning prayer for relief that didn't 
come ; and then at the last the vow of dedication 
in the Tabernacle. 

Those experiences running through long years 
re-made Hannah. She was no longer the 
woman she had been. God had made her over 
new. But it took much time, and very trying 
experiences to do it. He had to begin back with 
a woman, and patiently wait for her to be 
changed, in order to get the sort of man that He 



2i6 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

could use as a leader, to swing the nation back 
to Himself, and save His plan for a world. 

Samuel was the son of the new Hannah made 
by those years of patient training and gentle 
discipline. He stands in one of the worst gaps 
in Israel's history, and saved the nation, and 
the world-plan that centered in the nation. 
Samuel is one of the greatest illustrations of the 
power of a mother to make a son what he comes 
to be. 

Precious, Awful Power. 

But while one's whole life affects the heritage 
there is a potent period of singular significance. 
That is the time when the processes of nature 
have their beginnings. The conditions that pre- 
vail at this time contain a distinct prophetic 
forecast of what shall be in another. The 
thoughtfulness that makes us eager to be in life 
at all times what we would have our precious 
loved ones be should have special emphasis now. 
Sweetest purity of heart and thought, the prayer- 
ful reverence and humility of the truest saint, and 
sturdiest strength of purpose, should be simply 
and naturally but earnestly reached out after. 
For some one else bearing the image of God, will 
also bear the bodily and mental and spirit image 
of man. 

The influence exerted by the mother is great 



Heredity. 217 

beyond the power of our minds to think, or of 
our words to tell. The making of the child's 
character is in the mother's hands to a degree that 
is nothing short of startling. She actually may 
make her child just what she chooses to. A 
human life, in its physical characteristics, its 
mental gifts and powers, and its dominant spirit, 
is being made by her in the holy laboratory of 
nature. 

The greatest influence we can exert is through 
what we are. This is peculiarly true of the 
mother, and peculiarly true of her at this time. 
Her moods and bent of mind and habits are being 
woven into another life. It should be a time of 
quiet confidence in God, of tender love, and of 
cheeriest spirit. Special attention given to spe- 
cial subjects will have marked results. Illustra- 
tions are abundant of mothers giving a decided 
bent to a child's tastes at that time, as for 
example by the study of music. 

While it is commonly said, and truly so, that 
grace is not hereditary, yet without doubt a 
mother may wholly and radically affect her 
child's religious life at that time. That was ex- 
actly what Hannah did. Her spirit of devotion 
to God, her glad acquiescence in His plan for 
her son's life, the whole attitude of her spirit, 
earnest, humble and reverent, were reproduced 
in Samuel. 



21 8 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

"Vaguely through my blood it moved, 
Somewhat as a dream; 
Then at times more sharply stirred 
In that pulsing stream. 

"By and by, it sought to rise 
Upward as on wings; 
Save for it, my heart had missed 
Touch with higher things. 

"Yea, and had it not been there 
In my hour of need, 
I had not withdrawn my hand 
From a slavish deed. 

" Ah, the gifts that one at birth 
From his mother gains! 
This for me, — that prayer was wrought 
Subtly in my veins." ^ 

There's a bit of testimony regarding this that 
comes from a strange unexpected source, in a 
word spoken by Jerry McAuIey. He founded 
the Water Street Rescue Mission in New York 
City, now the Jerry McAuIey Mission. Its work 
is entirely one of rescue. Drunkards and thieves 
and bad men and women of every sort have been 
blessedly rescued to a new life through its activ- 
ity. There is no more difficult task than win- 
ning that class of people permanently away from 
their old haunts and habits. 

McAuIey himself had fallen some five times 
or so before finding his feet permanently. 

^ S. T. Livingston. 



Heredity. 219 

Speaking of these great difficulties he said, " I 
have never been able to do much with a man 
who didn't have a Christian mother." It's a 
significant bit of testimony from such a man, 
and out of such a quarter. 

Two cultured women were engaged in earnest 
conversation. The one was a mother who carried 
a broken heart about with her because of her 
wayward son. He ran to the excess of riot in 
evil habit, and the keen distress and cutting pain 
of it tugged endlessly at her heart. Their con- 
versation ran into serious things. And she spoke 
of her son and her sore heart. And then she 
exclaimed, *^ Is it not strange ? how can you 
explain such a thing? His father is a good man. 
We have always lived proper lives. How is it 
possible that a son of such parents should develop 
such traits?" 

The other woman was one who had thought 
deeply into such matters. Turning to her friend 
she spoke quietly of the immeasurable, subtle 
power of prenatal influence, and the unfailing 
certainty of its workings. Then with gentle tact- 
fulness and yet pointed plainness, she pointed 
out, in a very quiet voice, that every one's char- 
acter is traceable directly to just such influences 
much more than is commonly supposed, even by 
the more thoughtful. As the mother listened 
keenly an utterly new light broke, and what had 
been a mystery regarding her son began to clear. 



220 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals 

He was not an exception to the common law of 
life. What he was had come to him in its 
incipiency through a perfectly logical sequence. 
Yet such blame is not wholly the parents'. 
Were there more teaching of a practical sort 
about heredity, even in a small way, the effect 
would be immeasurably great, and only good. 
Ignorance leads to thoughtlessness, and that to 
far worse. And yet such thoughtlessness must 
always seem strange. 

Deciding the Life-bent. 

Pure living beforehand is more than a life- 
time of agonizing prayer afterwards. Each has 
its own ministry and influence. The pure life 
beforehand isn't enough. It needs the praying 
afterwards to accomplish the desired results. 
And praying afterwards without the pure life is 
awfully handicapped. It must try to carry two 
loads, its own and another's. It has a far more 
difficult task to perform. That task will take 
much longer time, and greater steadiness and in- 
sistence because of increased resistance. 

One of the greatest illustrations of a mother's 
power to affect radically her child's bent of mind 
and whole career is found in the life-story of 
one of the most noted infidels of recent times. 
He was a brilliant orator, a cultured gentleman, 
and with a peculiarly stubborn type of infidelity 



Heredity. 221 

which overcast all his thinking. Yet acquaint- 
ance with his prenatal condition would have 
surely awakened a real sympathy which could 
have greatly helped. 

His father was a clergyman of an old type 
now fortunately much less common than once. 
He preached a stern, severe, unlovable theology. 
And, as if it cast a spell over him, he showed 
the same sort of a spirit in his home, making 
it utterly miserable. The brunt of it all came 
upon the mother, of course. It affected her 
sorely and sadly. During the time when this son 
was maturing to birth she was in bitterness of 
soul, doubting if there could be a God after all. 
And in such an atmosphere her son was being 
moulded during all of those tenderly impression- 
able months. 

Can one wonder at his bent of mind, and the 
peculiar stubbornness of his skepticism? That 
was a horrid heredity. It could have been over- 
come without doubt to a very large degree. But 
even though overcome to the extent of accept- 
ance of Christian truth, without question there 
would have been a distinct effect upon his whole 
mentality clear to the end. 

But there are fully as many striking instances 
of the sort that bring cheer and gladness, if not 
more. Though there's a David blot on the old 
pages of this precious God-book, there is a Han- 
nah spot of unusual brightness. If there be a 



222 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

crafty Rebecca making a contemptible Jacob, 
there is a Joseph, son of the later, better man 
that grew up in Jacob. There is a Jeremiah,^ 
and a Paul ^ called of God while yet under that 
potent prenatal influence, and in all likelihood 
called through that influence. It is no matter 
of mere chance that the teller of the story in 
these sacred pages so often records the names 
of the mothers of its leading men. 

" Oh, wondrous mystery of motherhood ! 

That with one life another should be blent 
In union perfect, till each good intent 
Or thought of ill that drives away the good; 
The mother's strong desire or wayward moodg 
Should, to the soul unborn, a secret bent 
For good, or ill, impart. When, heaven-sent, 
Before the Virgin blest the angel stood. 

And to her, meek, submissive, did impart 
That she the hope of all mankind should bear; 
Tho* reassured that not a thought of guile 
Should mar that perfect life; yet, must her heart 
Have sought release from sin, in constant prayer, 
Lest she, by aught impure, his life defile." * 

The Brooding Father. 

And the father's part during this critical time 
is only less than that of the mother. If the 
mother's influence be the greater at this time, 
his is yet very great, beyond any power to esti- 

^ Jeremiah i : 4. * Galatians i : 15. 
*May Barnes Clarke. 



Heredity. 223 

mate, or words to try to tell. His attitude toward 
the mother has great influence upon her, and so 
upon the child. If ever a man acts well the 
part of lover it should be at that time. His 
eager forethought for her comfort, and to spare 
her strength, his tenderness of touch, and his 
lover devotedness, — the breathing of a warm 
fresh love into her life daily, will have enormous 
influence. 

And his thought toward the coming child will 
be moulding him directly. He can as really be 
brooding over the child in spirit and prayer, as 
the mother is actually. And the effect will be 
incalculably great 

There is a striking story that came to us out 
of real life, at very close range, that illustrates 
not only the influence of the mother upon the 
child, but the marked influence of another upon 
the mother and so in turn upon the child. The 
story came to us from a friend who got it di- 
rectly, a number of years ago, from the woman 
who tells the story. 

This woman was an English woman who came 
to the United States to join the Brook Farm 
Community at West Roxbury, Boston, Massa- 
chusetts. After being there awhile she decided 
to go to California, and it was on the way out 
there that the incident came to her of which she 
told our friend. It was in the early days of the 
settling of our West, when the first railroads 



224 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

were being built across the Mississippi Valley 
states. 

This English woman had gotten as far as the 
Middle West on her journey, when indisposition 
led her to leave the train to rest for a few days. 
She stopped in the only home, that of the man 
who kept the railroad station, and who combined 
crude hotel-keeping with his other occupation. 
There was no town. The man and his wife and 
children were all quite common, ordinary people, 
with one exception. 

The youngest child was totally different from 
all the others. She seemed a being of a different 
world. Fine features, keen thoughtful eyes, the 
quickness and lightness of a bird in movement, 
and a gentle refined spirit, gave her a distinction, 
of which of course she was not conscious, but 
which stood out all the more strikingly because 
of the contrast with the other children, and with 
her father and mother. 

The visitor noticed this constantly, and then 
made bold to speak of it. The mother said 
gently, with a touch of reverence in her man- 
ner, '' She is the child of a woman lying out un- 
der that tree over yonder," pointing to a grave- 
stone not far off. " Oh ! she is my own daugh- 
ter, but she was made so different from the 
others by that woman's influence.'' Then she 
told the story. 

The woman had been traveling west, and be- 



Heredity. 225 

ing taken sick was compelled to leave the train 
at this point, and lived in the home as the latter 
woman was doing. That was several months 
before the child was bom. Her sickness con- 
tinued for a number of months. It was during 
the open part of the year. She used to sit out 
under the trees reading and talking with the 
mother of the child. One of her favorite books 
was Scott's poems, and her favorite poem, " The 
Lady of the Lake." 

She would read aloud, or have her hostess 
read to her, when unable to read herself. She 
would talk of the lady in the story until the 
mother of the child came to idealize the lady of 
the poem as the perfection of sweet, young 
womanhood. Her eye and heart were filled with 
the vision of fair Ellen as Scott so winsomely 
pictures her: 

"The maiden paused, as if again 
She thought to catch the distant strain 
With head up-raised, and look intent, 
With eye and ear attentive bent, 
And lo'^ks flung back, and lips apart, 
Like monument of Grecian art. 
In listening mood, she seemed to stand 
The guardian Naiad of the strand. 

**And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace 
A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace, 
Of fairer form, or lovelier face: 



226 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

A foot more light, a step more true, 
Ne'er from the heath-flower dash'd the dew; 
E'en the sHght harebell raised its head, 
Elastic from her airy tread: 
What though upon her speech there hung 
The accents of the mountain tongue, — 
Those silver sounds, so soft, so clear, 
The listener held his breath to hear! 

"A Chieftain's daughter seemed the maid. 
Her satin snood, her silken plaid. 
Her golden brooch, such birth betray' d. 
And seldom was a snood amid 
Such wild luxuriant ringlets hid. 
Whose glossy black to shame might bring 
The plumage of the raven's wing; 
And seldom o'er a breast so fair. 
Mantled a plaid with modest care; 
And never brooch the folds combined 
Above a heart more good and kind. 
Her kindness and her worth to spy. 
You need but gaze on Ellen's eye; 
Not Katrine, in her mirror blue, 
Gives back the shaggy banks more true, 
Than every free-born glance confess'd 
The guileless movements of her breast; 
Whether joy danced in her dark eye, 
Or woe or pity claim'd a sigh, 
Or filial love was glowing there, 
Or meek devotion pour'd a prayer, 
Or tale of injury call'd forth 
The indignant spirit of the North."* 

No doubt this v^oman's talk was a very large 
part of the influence. After months the v^oman 
grew weaker, and then died, and was tenderly 
'"The Lady of the Lake," Scott, 



Heredity. 227 

laid away under the tree, and her grave marked. 
Soon after this child was born, and named Ellen, 
and grew up into the child the English woman 
had admired so much. Is it not a winsome tale 
out of life? Coming to us so directly it has all 
the peculiar force of a bit of real life. 

There was shown in a remarkable way the 
power that one person may exert upon another's 
child at that impressionable time. Not only had 
the mother shaped the child, but the other had 
shaped the mother, and so i^: lurn the child had 
been shaped. The thoughtful father can exert 
both sorts of influence upon his child, directly 
by his own thought and spirit, and indirectly 
but tremendously upon the mother. 

Did Mary brood prayerfully over the won- 
drous babe those long months before He came? 
Who can doubt it? Did Joseph brood tenderly 
over Mary as one intrusted to him by God, and, 
in his heart brood over the coming child? Who 
can doubt that? Did the Father above brood 
over both human mother and divine Son all those 
months? Who doubts that? 

We may yield ourselves habitually to our 
Father's brooding presence, and so be being 
made afresh into His image. And as we brood 
habitually over the coming one, the image being 
imprinted anew from within and above upon us, 
shall come to that new face that by and by shall 
look up into ours. 



TRAINING; THE INFLUENCES 
THAT COME AFTER. 



The University of Arabia. 

The Value of Training. 

'Blood and Training. 

A Study in Shoes, 

A Three-fold Cord. 

Street Weeds. 

The Heart Touch Upon the Ifind. 

The Home Atmosphere. 

The Child a Mirror of His Parents. 

The Home University. 

Waking a Queen. 



**Lord, let me make this rule, 
To think of life as school, 
And try my best 
To stand each test, 
And do my work, 
And nothing shirk. 

****** Hs 

These lessons Thou dost give 
To teach me how to live. 

To do, to bear, 

To get and share, 

To work and play. 

And trust alway." 

Maltbie Davenport Bahcock. 



TRAINING. 



The University of Arabia, 

School begins at birth, and ends — when? 
ever? never, neither in this world, nor in that 
which is to come. Not the school of books and 
benches. That begins its sessions later, and lets 
out earlier. But the higher school of atmosphere 
• and surroundings, of personal influence and the 
give and take of common life. 

The common experiences of life are invalu- 
able in moulding character. The boy David went 
to a training school for kings, though he didn't 
know it. As he faithfully went his commonplace 
shepherd round, out in the open, tending his 
dumb charges, skilfully guiding, bravely guard- 
ing, he was in training for higher shepherd 
duties. 

Experiences that test and sift offer the finest 
opportunities for the making of strong character. 
Young Joseph went to the University of Egypt, 
with a prison-house for a school-room. The 
teaching was all done by the Head-master Him- 
self. There was no class-work. It was all indi- 

231 



232 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

vidual instruction. He had the Teacher all to 
himself. That is the plan of instruction in the 
school of life. And when he graduated he was 
ready for the premiership of a world-power. 

Moses' education was in three courses^ home, 
school, and God; with his mother, with the uni- 
versity professors, and then with the sheep and 
the stars and God. His mother taught him love 
and patriotism; the professors, science and arts, 
literature and law. The desert course was all 
seminar work; it took him back of the uni- 
versity work to the original sources. 

His mother trained his heart, the teachers his 
mental powers, God taught and trained his 
spirit. The home taught him love, and love of 
right; the University of Egypt, mental culture; 
the University of Arabia, self-mastery through 
God-mastery. A man may get along without 
the school course, though he is much stronger 
and better with it. But no man's education is 
complete until he has been trained by a love- 
taught woman, and by God. 

No man ever amounts to much who hasn't had 
something of a course in the University of 
Arabia — the schooling of hard experience. 
Pure Joseph, patient Moses, fiery Elijah, rugged 
John the Herald, versatile Paul, — tent-maker and 
preacher, sturdy Luther, lonely Morrison, brave 
Judson amid the privations of Burmah, even the 
divine Son Himself — these are a few of the dis- 



Training. 233 

tinguished graduates. But there's many another, 
less known, who did as good school-work there, 
and gave as good an account of himself. 
Carey's cobbling shop, Bunyan's tinker-shop and 
prison cell, and Paton's cotton-loom did fine 
training work. 

Your wilderness course may be within four 
narrow walls with the upward look easiest phys- 
ically, or, within a small village or town, or a 
commonplace shop, or a humble house, or in 
some daily drudge round. But remember that's 
only the school-room. The finest training has 
been done in the homeliest school-rooms. The 
chief thing is the presence of the Head-master, 
and of a willing, hard-working pupil. You can 
be sure of the first, and you can make sure of the 
second. 

The Value of Training. 

But the greatest training is of the child. It is 
greatest because the stuff is so open to impres- 
sion. Whatever is put in sticks. The impression 
made then stays, and stays to the end. The work 
goes in deepest, and lasts longest. Training a 
child is the highest and holiest and most fas- 
cinating of all occupations. And it takes the 
most heart power and brain power combined of 
any, too. 

The babe is a mute eloquent appeal for a 



234 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

teacher, and for the best there is. He is a blank 
sheet of white paper waiting the first pen that 
comes. That sheet will take whatever is written 
upon it, the merest scrawl, or the finest copper- 
plate engraving; the most ungrammatical crud- 
ity, or the polished sentence. 

The babe may be more when he is a babe in 
possibility, than at any later time actually. Or 
he may go on becoming more. Every life is a 
story of the ascent of man, or the descent, ac- 
cording to the training, or the lack of it. Some- 
times one looks at a babe, and then at his parents, 
and wonders how such a babe was born to such 
parents. He seems so much finer a bit of 
humanity than they. 

It is because he starts in where they did, but 
they grew up untrained, and knew no self-train- 
ing, and have distinctly shrunk mentally and 
morally. They have become each simply a 
bundle of ignorances and prejudices and shift- 
less purposelessness. Their child stands for the 
point whence they started to go down. Train- 
ing makes the life story one of the ascent of 
a man; the lack of it of the going down of a 
man. 

Through heredity the child is more than either 
parent, for he is all of both. Through training 
he may be made more than either, and more than 
both. He should begin where they are at the 
time of his birth. The child that does not be- 



Training. 235 

come more than his parents becomes less, be- 
cause he begins with more, even though he may 
not be to blame. 

He stands on his parents' shoulders and 
should reach higher up. The parents should 
expect their child to be more and better. They 
ought to plan for that. It is a distinct drop when 
it turns out otherwise. The child must be better 
to be as good. But it all depends upon the train- 
ing. 

Someone has figured out the possible value of 
a bit of raw iron worth five dollars, according 
to the work put upon it. As iron ore it is worth 
five dollars, and will remain so if left alone. If 
made into horseshoes it will increase in market 
value to twelve dollars according to this reckon- 
ing; if into needles, to three hundred and fifty 
dollars; if into watch-springs, to two hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars. 

The changes made by skilled work upon that 
precious bit of humanity, the child, may not be 
so easily figured out. There's a market value, 
too, but the values run much lower, and much 
higher. The child may become a charge upon 
the State, and a menace to society. 

He may become a common day-laborer 
valued only for muscular strength; or, a skilled 
workman combining brain with hand and mus- 
cle; or, a trainer of skilled men. Or, he may 
become a thinker, making work for thousands; 



236 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

or, a leader, moulding the lives of the crowd for 
good, with his value to society beyond what dol- 
lars can buy or figures tell. 



Blood and Training. 



Which has the greater influence in the making 
of character, heredity or training? — the influences 
before birth, or those after? The question has 
been asked of scores of persons. It is surprising 
how often it has been met with hesitancy, as 
though a thing not thought into. And sur- 
prising too how indecisive the replies usually 
are. 

Yet careful thought makes it plain, and then 
plainer, that while heredity is great beyond any 
power of calculation, training is infinitely 
greater. Or, it would be better said thus : train- 
ing may be made infinitely greater. Training can 
be made the greater, yet with the vast majority, 
as a matter of fact, it isn't. The bent before 
birth, and the chance, weedy growth after, actu- 
ally make up the character of the great crowd, 
with training, properly so called, playing no part 
because it has no chance. 

Training is by far the greater in its possible 
power. Heredity, with the chance environment 
it has stumbled across, has actually been the 



Training. 237 

most potent factor, and is. If the start be 
early enough, heredity can be wholly overcome 
by training, though it rarely is. In many in- 
stances it is partially overcome. With the vast 
crowd, the child runs wild like an unkempt 
vine, or rank weed, and so heredity plus what- 
ever is absorbed by mere chance decides the 
life. 

Bad blood is bad. Bad training is yet worse. 
Good blood is good, but good training is better. 
It is easier to train where there is good blood. 
But then most blood is good, though the pedigree 
is not recorded. It is rather startling to remem- 
ber that good training with bad or not-good 
blood, if you can begin early enough, will give 
a better life than the best of blood with bad 
training, or, with the shiftless, weedy no-train- 
ing. 

A Study in Shoes. 



The purpose of training is to get character 
and skill. It has to do with what a man is, and 
what he can do. Not skill alone, for character 
gives direction and control to skill, and decides 
whether it shall be well used or not. And not 
character alone, immensely important as that is; 
for without skill to do some one thing well, a 
man is sorely handicapped. Training should 



238 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

aim at a strong healthful body, a clear well- 
stored brain, a deft hand, a gentle spirit, and a 
pure heart. 

The body should be trained for its own sake, 
and for its influence higher up. It should be 
properly fed and cared for, and taught to obey 
the laws of the body that so health may come, 
and stay. It should be developed symmetrically 
and trained to hard work. A healthful supple 
body is the foundation of strong character and 
of skill. That is where life starts. This is be- 
ginning lowest, but not beginning low. At the 
lowest it is high. The body has immense in- 
fluence upon mind and character, occupation and 
career. 

The mind should be trained to think clearly, 
and to acquire knowledge readily. The 
thinking is more than the knowing. To 
be able to think clearly, and express one's 
thoughts simply and concisely is as rare as 
it is invaluable. The will must be trained to 
be both servant and master; a good servant, 
quick and unfailing in its obedience; and so a 
good master, able to draw out obedience to 
itself, by every power of body and mind and 
spirit. 

The greatest task of training is here. The 
will is the citadel, the stronghold. Happy the 
child taught early to obey fully and promptly 
and intelligently. So only comes self-restraint, 



Training. 239 

and, higher up, self-control. The highest at- 
tainment of training and of life is self-control. 
It is this that puts us above the animal creation, 
and nearest to God. The less self-control the 
nearer we are to the beasts ; the more, the nearer 
to God. Training aims to teach true standards 
of action ; and then higher and harder, to make 
the life stand plumb up to the standards. 

And self-reliance is no small part of the train- 
ing task. All men may be divided into three 
groups by the sort of shoes they wear. Some 
wear their fathers' shoes^ some are shod by their 
fellows, and some wear shoes of their own mak- 
ing. The fathers' shoes are always too big. It's 
impossible to get a good footing in such shoes. 
They make weak feet, and poor walking. The 
shoes provided by the town are usually down at 
the heels and out at the toes. They prevent a 
strong, manly stride. 

The only decent shoe for a man to wear is 
the one of his own making. But a good many 
men, especially in a new country like ours, have 
had to pick up their shoemaking the best they 
could without help, and as a result their shoes 
squeak a good bit, and remind one constantly of 
their maker. A man should be trained to make 
his own shoes, and then in his busy life of 
service, forget he's made them. A thoughtful, 
modest, but sturdy serf-reliance is an essential 
of strong character. 



240 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

The hand should be trained to obey the will 
of the mind, the whole body in turn obeying 
the call of the hand. No matter what the life 
calling may be the hand should be trained to 
work, and to work skilfully. There would be 
less useless theory if there were more practical 
doing of things with the hand. The Hebrews 
have taught the world much, but nothing of 
much more practical worth than that every man 
should be trained to work, and to be an expert 
in doing some one thing. A deft, skilled hand 
increases pleasure, and usefulness, and im- 
mensely increases independence. 

And the training isn't complete without in- 
cluding gentleness of spirit; a spirit thoughtful 
enough to think of the other man's side of the 
story, and strong enough to be sympathetic and 
soft-touched and soft-spoken. And the highest 
notch is cut in the stick only as purity of heart 
swings clearly and strongly into view as the 
greatest attainment of life ; and then is earnestly 
coveted ; and then steadily reached up after ; and, 
bit by bit, with the Master's gracious help is 
both obtained and attained; gotten from Him as 
a gift, and worked out in one's life as an accom- 
plishment. 

A Three-fold Cord, 

A man's achievement depends on four things, 



Training. 241 

the native stuff he is made of, the training of 
that native stuff, the amount of physical vigor, 
and the spirit that animates and dominates his 
life. These same four things enter very largely 
into the making of character, too, though not so 
much as into his achievements. Heredity sup- 
plies the native stuff, what a man is in himself, 
apart from all training. 

One should never find fault with the stuff he 
finds in himself; for he has had nothing to do 
with it being himself; though he has everything 
to do with what shall be done with it, and by it. 
The training, the physical vigor, and the con- 
trolling spirit decide the part a man shall play in 
life. With these his parents first of all, and then 
the growing child, have everything to do. 

The physical vigor decides the amount of 
driving power at command, and so influences 
greatly the results. The spirit that controls will 
decide the moral bent of both character and 
career. The training will affect what shall be 
done, and especially the quality of work. It 
will also affect the length of time it takes a man 
to strike his pace. Untrained talent always 
takes longer time to get down to its work, and 
to get results. 

Unusual native gift, even though untrained, 
will forge to the front and make itself felt. But 
it would do so yet more and better and sooner 
with training, always provided the training is 



242 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

not of the sort that spoils the native gift. Men 
of only average ability give much better account 
of themselves when well trained. 

Physical vigor plays a great part. The aver- 
age man with a good stomach and a strong back 
can accomplish far more than the more-than- 
average fellow with poor stomach and weak 
back. Though so often a little fellow with poor 
digestion and wabbly nerves, but with a giant 
will tied up in his poor equipment, makes every- 
body and everything stand by and bend to his 
will ; but he does it in spite of heavy odds. How 
is it that big wills and little bodies go together 
so frequently? 

The ruling spirit really decides a man's worth. 
One man is selfish, self-centered, concerned 
wholly with getting every stream to run by his 
door^ and grind the grist of his own mill. The 
selfishness may be covered up by culture or 
polish, and not show so much^ and have the 
uglier edges rubbed off where it does show. Or, 
its ugly face may stand plainly out in full view. 

Another man is really gripped, underneath all 
his transactions, by a wholesome, earnest desire 
to serve, to be of help to others. All men group 
up under one of these two. Selfishness carried 
out to its full, logical end spells Satan. Unsel- 
fishness followed up to its source always leads 
straight to God. This is what is meant by the 
spirit of the man. It determines, not his 



Training. 243 

achievement in action, but his worth to the 
world. 

These things radically affect a man's charac- 
ter, as well as his career. For the stronger his 
body, the better his training, and the more nearly 
unselfish his spirit, other things being equal, the 
better and stronger the character he will grow, 
and the better work he can do. There can be 
character without training, and without a strong 
body, but it has a bigger fight for life, and most 
times goes down in the fight. 

It's an immense gain in character-making, and 
in the service one can do for his fellows, to be 
strong in body, and well trained mentally. 
Training, in the broader meaning, has to do with 
these three things. The gripping purpose in, 
and under, and through all thought of training 
should be to get physical strength, a clear, well- 
stored vigorous mind, and an unselfish spirit. 

Street Weeds. 



The influences that make and mold charac- 
ter are many and very different. Some are 
planned directly for their training worth. Others 
seem to come like the salt air from the ocean, 
unplanned by us, almost imperceptible some- 
times, yet exerting immense power upon charac- 
ter. Some influence character for good, and 
others for bad. 



244 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

One of the most potent of all influences in 
making character is the street. The great ma- 
jority of children, even in Christian lands, grow 
up in the street. That is to say, not literally in 
the street, though thousands do, literally, 
weather permitting. But they are allowed to 
grow up as they happen to. They simply go, 
and grow as the impulse seizes them, with prac- 
tically no guiding nor restraint. 

It is surprising to the startling point how many 
children of Christian homes, or at least church 
homes, of not-poor homes, as well as of those 
below that grade, are allowed to drift. There's 
a simple, striking phrase in Proverbs that is aptly 
descriptive, " the child left to itself/' ^ That tells 
the story of the great majority of children in city 
and country alike. 

More children are trained in this weedy, shift- 
less school than in any other. And it is a real 
training in its influence, a trainingless untrained 
training that always gets results. It makes 
character. The child grows up with no fixed 
standards. He is undisciplined mentally and 
morally. The training is a huge process of ab- 
sorption, with only chance to decide what shall 
be absorbed. Chance plays its own sweet will 
with them. Utter lack of training controls their 
lives from the earliest moment. 

One can think of no word, to decide the re- 
^ Proverbs xxix:i5. 



Training. 245 

suits mentally and morally, so expressive as the 
word '' weeds/' They grow ; that's in the na- 
ture, to grow; but just like a bunch of weeds, 
vigorous, rank, disordered, and affecting in a 
bad way both the soil, and all after attempts at 
cultivation. 

And if there do come up out of this street- 
school some strong characters it is in spite of the 
school. It shows the marvelous vitality of the 
human being. But the handicap suffered affects 
the whole career. This school is training more 
children than any other. And its graduates are 
affecting the whole life of Church and nation 
immensely. That the results are not worse than 
they are merely shows what an immense amount 
of preservative salt has been put into the lump 
of the human race. 

But the results are worse than anybody, even 
the most thoughtful, realize. Maybe in some 
far future time some historian will be keen 
enough (more likely not) to point out that it 
was the school system — the street-school sys- 
temless system — that led to the downfall of the 
American Republic. 

In sharp contrast with this is the great com- 
mon school system of our country. It is the 
chief counteractant of the street-school so far as 
it is counteracted. It supplies a big lump of 
salt to keep things sweet. The school is one of 
the greatest moulders of good characters, from 



246 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

the poorly graded, or ungraded district school, 
up, through our remarkable public-school system, 
to the college and university. The influence here 
in the molding of character is inestimable. 

And the Church, with its Sabbath School de- 
partment, is one of the greatest of all moulding 
and training factors. Its power in past centuries 
has been enormous, and is still beyond calcula- 
tion; though so many agencies to which the 
Church gave birth have swung oflf into inde- 
pendent action, and are put above their mother 
by some in the influence they are thought to 
exert. But the Church to-day, with all the cur- 
rent criticism of its methods and work, is ex- 
erting an influence in the moulding of the child 
far beyond any power of expression. Its in- 
fluence in training and moulding character is 
vastly more than statistics can suggest, and 
clear beyond the organic expression of its 
life. 



The Heart Touch Upon the Mind. 

Companionships breathe into the child's life 
an atmosphere that greatly affects his character. 
They seem to happen, even in the fewer in- 
stances where thoughtful parents try to choose 
and guide. Natural likes decide them very 
largely. The mere being thrown together con- 
stantly seems the only thing that decides what 



Training. 247 

companion a child shall have oftentimes. A bad 
companion can give a bad twist to the whole life. 
A thoughtful companion from a good home can 
as radically affect the life the other way. It is a 
left-handed influence, all the greater because not 
planned. 

And the rarer friendship that grows up out 
of companionship does far more. Friendship is 
like the cream of companionship, the smaller, 
richer part that separates itself from the rest 
by its upward movement, and enriches and 
sweetens the whole life. Neither verbs nor ad- 
jectives nor all other parts of speech, can tell the 
potency of friendship in making and moulding 
and transforming character. And yet however 
much the wise father and thoughtful mother 
may plan they cannot make a friendship for the 
child. The planning helps. Praying does yet 
more. 

As simple a thing as a book or a picture has 
great influence in moulding character. Fre- 
quently a bad book has blighted and embittered 
a whole life. Yet more frequently a good book, 
just one little bunch of small leaves, fastened to- 
gether, carried off in a pocket, has turned a life 
completely around. Books and libraries rank 
very high in their shaping power. 

And with the book goes the picture. A bad 
picture can burn a hole that can't be filled in. 
It can make a sore that won't heal, and leave a 



248 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

scar that can't be got rid of. And good pictures 
are like angels of God in their blessed min- 
istry. 

The story is told of a young Yale student of 
twenty-two. The walls of his room were cov- 
ered with cheap flaming prints of advertisement 
pictures and actresses and the like. A friend 
gave him a copy of Hoffman's wonderful, Geth- 
semane Christ-head. Whether given with a pur- 
pose, or merely as a token of friendship isn't 
told. The young fellow hung up his new art 
treasure. 

Soon he was up on a chair taking the cheap 
prints down. That great Christ face caught and 
gripped him. He said : '' I couldn't let those 
cheap things stay up there beside that face ! " 
Its presence revealed their cheapness. And 
without doubt the change in the walls of his 
room told of a change on the inner walls of his 
heart, too. 

Great experiences have remarkable training 
power. A great sorrow may radically affect 
the character for a lifetime, even with a very 
young child. The coming of love into life, the 
life-love, is often as the small warm rain of 
heaven, and the fragrant dew of a clear, still 
night, and as the bright shining out of the blue, 
in bringing a new springtime of mental and 
moral growth where all had been wintry and 
barren before. 



Training. 249 

And conversion has marvelous power over the 
mental faculties. Real conversion awakens the 
whole man within. A new gripping life-pur- 
pose, a new mental keenness, a new power to 
sway others, are natural results of conversion. 
If the thing may be put on so low a level, parents 
should pray for the child's conversion, not only 
that his soul may be saved, but that his life may 
be awakened, and his mental powers aroused 
into full life. And yet that is not putting it low. 
The new birth of the Holy Spirit brings a new 
mental birth, too. 

A striking instance of this comes to mind. A 
young girl of twelve years decided to become a 
Christian. She was one of a large family of 
children. The new purpose went down into the 
vitals of her sensitive nature, and became the 
over-mastering passion. She had less oppor- 
tunity of schooling than some of the others. But 
in strong, gripping life-purpose, in mental keen- 
ness, in deep tender sympathy, and in the 
achievement of her life, she has so far outstripped 
all the others of the family, parents and children 
alike, that there seems to be no second. 

Careful study and sifting of all the facts leads 
to the clear, irresistible conclusion that the chief 
factor in her life has been the touch of the 
Holy Spirit, to whom she yielded so early and so 
fully. These are some of the great influences 
that make and shape the child. 



250 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

The Home Atmosphere. 

But there's another influence so far greater 
than any of these that it must be put and kept in 
a class all by itself. The home influence in the 
training of the child is clear beyond all of these 
others put together. Indeed most of these, if 
not all, are outgrowths of the home. All their 
roots run down here. The home is the center 
and source of the power that moulds and trains 
the child. 

It may be a very simple home. Poverty's 
mark may be plainly seen there, and felt more 
than seen. But it has the power to mould the 
precious child as neither Church nor school nor 
any other influence can do. The world's great 
instructors are obliged to bare their heads, and 
bow low in reverence of the home. It underlies 
and outstrips the best they can do. And, in 
countless instances, it completely undercuts, and 
to a large extent undoes their best work. 

This is the training school. More is done here 
than in all others. What is done here goes deep 
in, and stays in clear to the end. The young 
child is utterly open and soft to impression, and 
never so soft and open afterwards. Father and 
mother have the training of the child more than 
pastor, teacher, librarian, or friend can have. 
Even if they neglect the sacred trust, and enter 
the child in the street-school for all or any part 



Training. 251 

of the time, still what they don't do is more than 
what any one else can do. Their shiftless, plan- 
less not-doing is a potent factor, moulding the 
child more than any other that may come in 
later. 

And by all odds the chief thing in the home- 
training is the spirit of the home. Out on the 
California coast they go into ecstasies over the 
remarkable products of the soil, their great trees 
and flowers, fruits and vegetables. And if you 
ask the explanation of the unusual growths the 
answer always refers to the atmosphere. Every- 
thing is the atmosphere. That is the secret of all 
home-training. The spirit of the home does the 
training most. 

A few years ago the leading educators in the 
East were discussing with much earnestness the 
matter of shortening the college course to three 
years. Some urged a change to the shorter 
term. Others insisted just as earnestly on the 
present four-year term. In the discussion the 
president of one of the largest and oldest and 
highest-standard universities urged the advan- 
tage of the four-year term because of the great 
influence of " university residence,'' as he termed 
it. He insisted that the mere living in the uni- 
versity atmosphere influenced and trained the 
students greatly, quite apart from, and in addi- 
tion to, the studies scheduled in the curriculum. 

This touches at once the stronghold of the 



252 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

home-training, whichever way its influence may 
turn. The atmosphere of the home is breathed 
in by the child, and exerts an influence in his 
training more, by far, than all other things put 
together. The child receives more by uncon- 
scious absorption than in any other way. He 
is all ears and eyes and open pores. He is open 
at every angle and point and direction, and all 
between. He is an absorbing surface; he takes 
in constantly; he takes in what is there; and 
what he takes in makes him. 

The spirit of the home then is the one thing 
on which the keen mind and earnest heart of 
father and mother will center most, for the 
child's sake. It should be a spirit of reverence, 
simple, strong reverence for the unseen Father, 
and for each one made in His image from babe 
up. 

The brief reading from the old Book of God, 
the bent knee, the giving of thanks and oflfering 
of petition in simplest speech, the table blessing, 
and all this touched by the reverent sense of the 
Father's loving presence, with the daily personal 
life kept true and sweet to this spirit of rever- 
ence, — this goes far toward making a home-spirit 
of untenable power in moulding the child. 

And with this may go that which belongs with 
it, and can be made to grow up out of it — the 
mental and moral atmosphere. There can be a 
mental alertness, a sweet wholesomeness of tone. 



Training. 25^ 

a cheery quiet poise of temper, in the midst of 
the busy round of little things that makes up 
the home life so largely. 

The home can be kept orderly, and nothing 
does more in making character than wholesome 
orderliness. Wealth can't bring it, nor bare 
boards keep it away. An untidy home — ^the 
uglier word is slovenly — means untidy morals, 
slovenly thinking and slovenly work. And if 
spareness of funds compels sharp frugality, 
that can be made to bring a great blessing. For 
frugality teaches carefulness in thinking, and in 
moral decisions, and in speech and in action. 

The Child a Mirror of His Parents. 

There's a yet better, closer-home way of say- 
ing all this : the spirit of the parents is the spirit 
of the home. In actual life, that means that the 
spirit of the mother makes the spirit of the home. 
The father may be ever so strong in character 
and purpose but he can't make the spirit of the 
home except as mother and father work to- 
gether as one. The father simply can't make the 
home spirit different from what the mother 
makes it, except as he influences the mother 
herself. 

How shall we give the home the sort of at- 
mosphere that will make strong character? 
How can we do it? Simply and only by yield- 



254 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

ing the whole personal life fully and sweetly up 
to the mastery of the Master. If we will recog- 
nize His gracious presence, and spend the day 
with Him, His spirit will fill us, and our homes, 
and our children. He is as truly in the kitchen 
as in the cathedral, and may be worshiped as 
really, even while the hands cook and wash and 
stitch. 

The way to train the child is to train yourself. 
What you are he will be. If your hands are 
morally dirty his life will be dirtied by the home 
handling he gets. If he is to obey his mother 
he must breathe in a spirit of obedience from his 
mother. Your child will never obey more than 
you do. The spirit of disobedience in your heart 
to God, of failure to obey, of preferring your 
own way to God's, will be breathed in by your 
child as surely as he breathes the air into his 
lungs. 

A spirit of quiet confidence in God, in the 
practical things that pinch and push, will breathe 
itself into the child. A poised spirit, a keen 
mind, a thoughtful tongue^ a cheery hopeful- 
ness, an earnest purpose, in mother and father 
will be taken into the child's being with every 
breath. And the reverse is just as true. Every 
child is an accurate bit of French-plate faith- 
fully showing the likeness of mother and father 
and home. We must be in heart what we would 
have the child be in life. 



Training. 255 

A story is told of a sick child. The physi- 
cian said he could not recover. The pastor was 
called in to pray. With sympathetic voice he 
reverently prayed, ** Thy will be done." " No," 
the mother passionately interrupted, " not that ; 
my will; the child must live." And the child 
did live, and lived to break his mother's heart, 
and disgrace her name, by the same spirit of self- 
will she had shown. He simply breathed in his 
mother's spirit, and lived it out to its logical con- 
clusion. That he lived, was not an answer to 
prayer, but a coincidence. There was no real 
prayer on the mother's part. She was more 
outspoken in her interruption than most. But 
whatever is the spirit of the heart is breathed in 
by the child and makes his character. 

The Home University. 

Then there's the planned training. The home 
should be thought of as a school, with father and 
mother as joint principals. The child should 
have the best mental training it is possible to 
give him. And it is entirely possible for the 
humblest home to provide the foundation of a 
liberal education. Three simple things go a long 
way toward a liberal education: ability to use 
one's own language clearly and forcibly, ac- 
quaintance with a few good classics of the 
English tongue, and some general knowl- 



256 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

edge of history and of the world of affairs. 

The books may be few, but they can be chosen, 
and be choice. The father- and mother-teachers 
may have hard work holding the roof over 
their heads, and getting meal from the mill, but 
the purpose of the life will decide the conduct of 
both life and home. They can live with their 
children in their studies. They can piece in 
spare moment, to keep ahead of the children. 
They can take bits of time to read with the chil- 
dren and talk over what is read. Many a strong 
leader of thought among men has had the foun- 
dation of his education laid in just such a home, 
and by such love-wise parents. 

There is no finer mental training that can 
be done than to teach the child the reading habit, 
a good intelligent book-reading habit. It is 
astonishing how rare the reading habit is. To 
the thousands books are sealed treasures. They 
can listen to men talk if they talk simply enough^ 
but they can't get information out of a book, 
though they can pronounce the words easily 
enough. The crowd stands deaf and blind before 
a book; because they haven't acquired the read- 
ing habit while young. 

And that is true not simply of the ignorant, 
but of thousands who are reckoned intelligent^ 
and who are intelligent, in making money, and 
in discussing the common affairs of life. The 
book-reading world is a very small one. It's a 



Training. 257 

very difficult task to write a book that many 
people will read. The paper-reading, and mag- 
azine-reading world is much larger. But the 
reading is pretty much of a very shallow sort. 

Papers and magazines are of ^reat value, if 
one has learned how to read them. They should 
have only a small proportion of a man's reading 
time. With thousands they make shallow read- 
ing, and shallower thinking, and tongues loose at 
both ends. To teach a child to read a book 
thoughtfully is one of the greatest services that 
can be rendered. The thoughtful mastering of 
one good book will frequently train and trans- 
form the whole life. And, more, it fixes the 
reading habit which makes all books your helpers 
and servants. 

Then the child's bent of mind should be 
studied. His natural gifts should be keenly ob- 
served. So we may be wisely guided in de- 
ciding upon his life occupation. The old pas- 
sage, so much quoted from Proverbs, " train up 
a child in the way he should go,'' ^ might better 
be read, '' train him up in the way he is inclined 
by natural gift to go." It seems to refer not to 
the moral training, but to the training of his 
native gifts, that so he may be led into the occu- 
pation to which he is best suited by natural gift. 
And as he grows older he won't need to change 
his work, as is so often done. 

^ Proverbs xxii :6. 



258 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

And the child should be taught early to know 
God, and to recognize His inner voice. Sam- 
uel's ear was trained very early to recognize 
God's voice. God speaks to the child. He may 
be taught very early to recognize that voice. 
And this will lead very naturally to the decision 
we call conversion. It is natural for the child, 
as he is taught of God and of His love, to want 
to please Him. This is the natural thing. 

To do wrong, and sin wilfully, and then have 
to repent, and go through a more or less violent 
experience of breaking away from sin and com- 
ing to God — this is not the natural order. It 
has become the necessary order, because of lack 
of self-training and lack of child-training by 
parents. 

But to lead the child to know God, and to 
desire to please Him, and never to disobey, nor 
fail to obey, and so gradually come by almost 
imperceptible steps and decisions into the matur- 
ing Christian life, — this is the true natural order. 
But the parents must live that way themselves if 
they are to lead the child that way. What a 
prod the child is to pure holy living, and stern 
self-discipline! 

Waking a Queen, 

And plans should be matured early to give the 
child the best schooling it is possible for him to 



Training. 259 

have. Better fewer, plainer clothes on his back, 
and simpler food in his stomach, and a harder 
bed for his sleep, if so there may be better drill- 
ing for his mind. There is no finer investment 
of hard-earned, sweat-wet dollars than in giving 
boy or girl a good schooling. And '' good '' here 
means schooHng with sensible standards and 
strong discipline, and with the dignity of labor 
and the need of experience honored along with 
book study. 

Then comes the time when the child wakes up, 
if he does. There is no greater moment in a 
child's life than when he catches fire with the 
great purpose of life, and wakens up to the part 
he is to play in life. Father and mother should 
eagerly plan and pray for the child's awakening 
to a good consciousness of his powers, and to a 
strong life-purpose. They should pray too, for 
courage and patience to help wisely and strongly 
when that time comes. 

There's a fine bit of description in a recent 
nature book that helps greatly here. A mother 
eagle had tried in vain to tempt her little one 
to leave the nest on a high cliff. With food in 
her talons she came to the edge of the nest, hov- 
ered over it a moment, so as to give the hungry 
eaglet a sight and smell of food, then went 
slowly down to the valley, taking her food with 
her, and telling the little one to come and he 
should have it. He called after her loudly and 



26o Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

spread his wings a dozen times to follow. But 
the plunge was too awful; he was afraid and 
settled back into the nest. The writer tells the 
story thus: 

'' In a little while she came back again, this 
time without food, and hovered over the nest, 
trying every way to induce the little one to leave 
it. She succeeded at last, when with a desperate 
effort he sprang upward and flapped to the ledge 
above. Then after surveying the world gravely 
from his new place, he flapped back to the nest, 
and turned a deaf ear to all his mother's assur- 
ances that he could fly just as easily to the tree- 
tops below, if he only would. 

'^ Suddenly, as if discouraged, she rose well 
above him. I held my breath, for I knew what 
was coming. The little fellow stood on the edge 
of the nest, looking down at the plunge which he 
dared not take. There was a sharp cry from 
behind, which made him alert, tense as a watch- 
spring. The next instant the mother-eagle had 
swooped, striking the nest at his feet, sending his 
support of twigs and himself with them out into 
the air together. 

" He was afloat now, afloat on the blue air in 
spite of himself, and flapped lustily for life. 
Over him, under him, beside him hovered the 
mother on tireless wings, calling softly that she 
was there. But the awful fear of the depths 
and of the lance tops of the spruces was upon the 



Training. 261 

little one; his flapping grew more wild; he fell 
faster and faster. Suddenly — more in fright, it 
seemed to me^ than because he had spent his 
strength — he lost his balance and tipped head 
downward in the air. It was all over now, it 
seemed; he folded his wings to be dashed to 
pieces. 

'' Then like a flash the old mother eagle shot 
under him, his despairing feet touched her broad 
shoulders, between her wings. He righted him- 
self, rested an instant, found his head; then she 
dropped like a shot from under him, leaving him 
to come down on his own wings. It was all the 
work of an instant before I lost them among the 
trees far below. And when I found them again 
with my glass the eaglet was in the top of a 
great pine, and the mother was feeding him. 

" And then, standing there alone in the great 
wilderness, it flashed upon me for the first time 
just what the wise old prophet meant, ' As an 
eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her 
young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, 
beareth them on her wings — so the Lord.' '' ^' ^ 

There is no task requiring more God-taught 
tact and strength and patience than this thing 
of teaching the child to know and use his pow- 
ers rightly. And there is no greater joy than, 
with the rainbow mist in your eyes, to see 

^ Deuteronomy xxxii: ii, 12. 
^ " Wilderness Ways,'* by W. J. Long. 



262 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

your child wake up. All unconsciously there 
comes a new light in his eye, overspreading the 
face, a new decisiveness in the step, and a new 
ring in the voice. That is a rare bit of the 
trainer's full, sweet reward. 

Seventy-odd years ago a small group of gen- 
tlemen rode through the darkness of the night, 
and rapped vigorously at a house in old Eng- 
land. They awakened a young girl sleeping 
within, and told her she was a queen. And as 
her gracious majesty. Queen Victoria, of ever 
blessed memory, heard the news she exclaimed, 
'' ril be a good queen,'' and begged their pray- 
ers that so it might be. 

It is among the happiest days in a mother's 
life when she can awaken her daughter, and tell 
her she is a queen; and then find that her train- 
ing has led her into a sweet, queenly womanhood. 
And it's among the gladdest days of a father's 
life, when his son awakes into his royal manly 
power, and with fine modesty and sturdy self- 
reliance and self-discipline, finds himself habitu- 
ated by that father's touch and life to be a man. 

'"' Tom Never Left Down the Bars Again," 



The great test of home-training is in disci- 
pline. When the child has disobeyed, perhaps 
thoughtlessly, perhaps wilfully, — that is a testing 
time full of meaning to both parent and child. 



Training. 263 

It means most to the child, but it means much to 
the parent. 

Here is where right birth will be found to 
bear some of its finest fruit. The planned birth, 
with no element of chance, or of anything lower 
entering in, removes at once a large group of the 
knottiest problems of discipline. All problems 
centering in the child's disposition, his docility 
of spirit, may practically be solved before birth. 

Discipline is a great test of love and of wis- 
dom. It calls for a fine tempering together of 
wisdom and love, firmness and gentleness, in- 
sistence upon obedience, but with a love-light in 
the eye. The old puritanical ideas made stern 
fathers. Love was sacrificed to a sense of right. 
Now there is a distinct and dangerous swing 
the other way, toward a weak laxness of disci- 
pline. Neither is ideal, but of the two the 
former bred stronger men. It takes a good bit 
of keen work to blend right and love in good 
proportions. 

There's a fine story that comes from a New 
England home of years ago. It is told by one 
of the two boys concerned, grown to manhood 
as he tells the story. He said: 

'' Once I saved Tom from a promised whip- 
ping for leaving down the bars when he went 
after the cows at milking time, thus giving the 
young cattle left in the pasture a chance to get 
out, which they always improved. If they were 



264 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

on the back side of the lot when Tom got the 
cows he thought it unnecessary to put up the 
bars. It would be so short a time when the 
cows would be driven back. 

" Father cautioned and reproved him several 
times, till finally he threatened to whip him if it 
happened again. Several weeks passed, and he 
left the bars down again. The young cattle got 
into the corn, doing much damage. 

" The next morning father said nothing, but 
went about his usual work. Tom was gloomy; 
there was an air of depression in the house, and 
I was greatly troubled. I couldn't bear to have 
Tom whipped, nor could I blame father. At 
last I resolved to go and speak to him. 

^* The sun was shining brightly, and he was 
opening some tumbles of hay in the east meadow. 
I approached him slowly, for I did not feel sure 
of m.y ground, and stood still without saying a 
word. He looked up at me and said: 

"^Well, Joe, what is it?' 

'' ' I have come to speak to you about Tom. 
I don't want him whipped.' 

" ' I do not see how you can help it, my son. 
I cannot have my crops destroyed in this way, 
and I must keep my word.' 

'' * Father, didn't you read this in the morning 
lesson : '' He was wounded for our trans- 
gressions; He was bruised for our iniquities, 
and by His stripes we are healed." ' 



Training. 265 

*' * Yes ; what a boy you are to remember, 
Joe.' 

" ' Well, I will take half the blows you intend 
to give Tom.' 

*' ' I can't do that, Joe. Tom is the trans- 
gressor, not you,' father answered, his face soft- 
ening and his voice trembling a little. Then 
looking at me keenly, he asked: 

'' ' Did Tom send you to me ? ' 

*' ' No. He knows nothing of my coming.' 

" My father stood leaning on his pitchfork 
with both hands, looking down on the ground. 
At length he said : 

" ' Go and bring Tom.' 

*' I found him on the front porch with a sober 
face, trying to study. 

" ' Come with me, Tom ; father wants you.' 

*' ' I know what he wants,' turning a little 
pale. After a moment's hesitation he arose, 
saying : 

" ' I might as well go now and have it done 
with.' 

" As we walked along I thought best to give 
him a little advice, for he generally did as oc- 
casion served him. There was no knowing be- 
forehand what he would do. 

" ' Now, Tom, you mustn't flare up or show 
any spunk. You must be humble and answer 
father's questions in a good kind of way. You 



266 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

mustn't talk any; only answer his questions. I 
don't think he'll be hard with you/ 

'' To this he made no reply. He evidently 
thought it easy for me to talk; the stripes were 
not coming down on my back. 

'' Father stood as I had left him. I can see 
him now, after the lapse of so many years, with 
his back to the morning sun, leaning forward a 
little on the stail of his fork, looking down to 
the ground, one hand above the other and his 
chin on his hands, and some forkfuls of hay 
scattered about him. 

" He did not seem to see us. He was lost 
in reverie. 

" * Father,' I ventured timidly, ' Tom is here.' 
" He looked up at us both quickly, then said : 
" ^ Tom, do you remember these words in our 
Scripture reading this morning, '' He was 
wounded for our transgressions ; He was bruised 
for our iniquities, and by His stripes we are 
healed?"' 

" * Yes, sir,' answered Tom, greatly sur- 
prised. 

'' ' What do you think those words mean ? ' 
'' ' That Christ suffered for us,' replied Tom, 
his voice unsteady and his face flushing up. 
'' ' Well, Joe offers to suffer for you.' 
*' Tom turned to me with a look on his face I 
shall never forget, and exclaimed: 
'' ' No, Joe, you shall not do that.' 



Training. 267 

" Then, flinging his arms around my neck, he 
kissed me, and, quick as a flash, stepped up to 
father and held out his hand, saying: 

" ' The stripes belong to me^ father ; I am 
ready/ 

'' Tears were now falling down father's face, 
and for a minute he could not speak. Then he 
said: 

" ' No, Tom, I cannot punish anyone now. I 
do not think you'll ever forget this day. If you 
do, remember Joe's offer holds good. I love my 
children, and I want to do them all the good I 
can. But I must be obeyed and that is one way 
of doing them good. You may go now.' 

" Tom did not stir. He was evidently wait- 
ing for me and yet, for some reason I could not 
explain, I hesitated. Stepping closer, I said : 

'' ' Father, I want to kiss you.' 

'' He caught me in his arms, saying : ' Oh, my 
boy,' and kissed me. Then taking Tom, who 
was ready, he said : ' God bless you, dear Tom,' 
kissing him with swimming eyes. 

'' Then, with a great awe upon us, we went to 
the house. I will add that Tom never left the 
bars down again." ^ 

What a blessed picture of God that father 
found opening up to him as he acted the part 
of God to his erring son ! What a new motive 

* " Home Memories," Eli Barber. 



268 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

power love put into that boy's life from that 
moment on! 

The love of Christ constrains to earnest 
service, and it also restrains from sin. If we 
might know that great love of His better and 
live it more simply. For love, His love in us, 
is the secret of all training. 



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HANNAH WHITALL SMITH 

The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life 

New Edition, with Decorative Lace Border and I^ace Cover 

Design. i2mo, Cloth, net $1.00. 

A Handsome New Gift Edition of this famous Christian 
classic, which as a prominent writer once said will **trans- 
form the dark days of your life, as it has transformed those 
of thousands before you." 

J. H JOWETT 

Our Blessed Dead 

i6mo. Boards, 25c. 
A booklet of consolation; suggestive and effective. 

CORTLAND MYERS 

The Real Holy Spirit 

i2mo. Cloth, net 50c. 

"To make this unreality realand mighty in thelife of 
the individual and of the Church is the purpose of this book, 
that is eminently sane and practical, and will appeal with 
force to every thoughtful and earnest Christian." — Christian 
Guardian. 



ESSAYS— ADDRESSES— STUDIES 



J. H. JOWETT 

The High Galling. Meditations on St. Paul's 
Letter to the Philippians. 

i2mo. Cloth, net $1.25, 

The successor of the late R. W. Dale in the great pulpit 
at Birmingham, England, is perhaps more appreciated to-day 
than any living writer of devotional works. This latest 
study is quite the peer of his best earlier issues. 

S, D, GORDON 

Quiet Talks on Home Ideals 

i6mo. Cloth, net, 75c. 

A new volume of Mr. Gordon's forceful talks which in 
the words of a prominent Bible scholar and leader "have 
thrilled, captivated and inspired to pray without ceasing." 
In his latest work the author has placed in a new setting 
familiar truths, and made them living and intensely prac- 
tical. He deals with such subjects as Ideals, The Finest 
Friendship, Homes, Father, Mother, The Babe, Heredity, 
Training, all in his fascinating and wonderfully helpful way. 

CHARLES McTYEIRE BISHOP, P.P. 

Jesus the Worker 

Studies in the Kthical lycadership of the Son of Man. 

i2mo. Cloth, net $1.25. 
The Cole lycctures for 1909, **The scholarly attainments 
and vigor of this well-trained mind were known to a wide 
circle of friends who were ready to declare that the lectures 
for 1909 would take rank among the best delivered upon 
this foundation. This prophecy has been fulfilled." — Nash- 
ville Christian Advocate. The theme is divided as follows: 
Jesus the Man, llie Acts of Jesus, The Attitude of Jesus 
I'oward the Universe, The Constructive Purpose of Jesus, 
The Ethics of Jesus, Jesus the Preacher, 

J. STUART HOLPEN 

The Redeeming Vision 

i2mo, Cloth, net $1.25. 

"The marked characteristic of this author is the keen 
searching into the deepest facts of the soul experience. His 
addresses point the way to peace and power through self- 
surrender and the new life, and are as full of hope as they 
are of faithful warning. They are set in a clear, nervous 
style and provoke meditation." — Wooster Quarterly. 



EVANGELISTIC 



J. WILBUR CHAPMAN 

Another Mile. Revival ?^?^U. 

New Popular Edition. Paper, net 25c. Regular Edition, 

i2mo, Cloth, net 750. 

"Ten evangelistic addresses, which have been used to ad- 
vantage by this great leader of modern revival movements. 
ITiey bear the marks of ethical convictions, great love for 
souls, insight into the meaning of the Scripture, vivid and 
pathetic illustrations." — Western Christian Advocate. 

Edited by WALT HOLCOMB 

Popular Lectures of Sam Jones 

i2mo, Cloth, net 75c. 

"Sam Jones knew well how to strike out from the 
shoulder against liquor and sin and all sorts of meanness. 
His original and strikingly characteristic style come out 
forcibly in these addresses. There is plenty of laugh in the 
book and plenty of hard horse sense.'* — Zion's Herald. 

PAUL J. GILBERT 

The King's Greatest Business 

Introduction by Charles M. Alexander. Net 75c. 

The author of "Conductor Tim" tells of many striking 
incidents and results of personal work as related by promi- 
nent Christian workers. Charles M. Alexander says: "Mr. 
Gilbert is a successful soul-winner. Only the man who has 
done the work can accurately tell others how to do it. His 
book deals with a subject, deep, vital and far-reaching." 

MELVm E, TROTTER 

Jimmy Moore of Bucktown. A Story 
of work in the Slums, and of the Power of 
the Christ Life through a Waif of the Street, 

Decorated Cover, i2mo, Cloth, net 75c. 

Not only a good, but a very good book indeed. And the 
best of it is that it tells a true story in plain English — in 
the English of the very common people it deals with. 

YOUNG MEN 

JAMES MADISON STIFLER 

The Fighting Saint 

i6mo, Cloth, net 75c. 

"The 'fighting saint* is a twentieth century warrior, 
analytic, keen, suggestive, fighting modern battles with mod- 
ern weapons One hardly knows whether to appreciate 

more highly its downright reality and sincerity, or its deep 
brotherly sympathy with the inward struggles of man or its 
keen yet genial insight into things and folks. Its point of 
view is fresh and original. He who dips anywhere into the 
book, or reads it through, which he can hardly help doing, 
is sure of a wake-up to his brains, and a stimulus to his 
imagination." — Sunday School Times. 



DEVOTIONAL 



PETER AINSLIE 

God and Me 

i2mo, Boards, net 25c. 

"An exquisite booklet. A veritable casket of jewels. 
These counsels to Christians, on duty, privilege and^ relations 
of social and religious life is unique. Its worth is in the 
wisdom and pertinence of that which it says of prayer, 
faith, the Bible, amusements, books, etc. A worthy vade 
mecum for every believer." — The Standard. 

WORKS BY WILLIAM BIEDERWOLF 

How Can God Answer Prayer? 

i2mo. Cloth, net 75c. 

A devout and exceedingly helpful and thorough discus- 
sion of a great theme. 

The Growing Christian; or the Develop- 
ment of the Spiritual Life. 

i2mo. Cloth, net 50c. 

Deals with the implanted life of God in the soul, the 
conditions of growth and decay, the signs of arrested devel- 
opment, and the type of growth as presented by the Apostle 
Paul in his instructions to the Dphesian Church. 

A Help to the Study of the Holy Spirit 

i6mo, Cloth, net 75c. 
A careful and diligent study of the Scripture teaching 
as to the personality, deity, sealing, anointing, communion, 
fruits, baptism, filling, emblems and resistance of the Spirit. 



FOR THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 



WORKS BY WILLIAM BIEDERWOLF 
The White Life. A Plea for Personal Purity. 

New E)dition, Revised and E)nlarged. Paper, net loc. 

The application of the seventh commandment and a 
loving and earnest appeal to men. 

The Christian and Amusements 

Paper, net 25c. 

The difficult subject of amusements would ^ not be so 
difficult were the question approached in the spirit of candid 
inquiry in which this book is written. 



NOV 16 1909 



•^O CAT OIV. 



NOV 16 1909 



